#39 — Fast Five
This is an ongoing countdown of my 49 1/2 (which will makes sense at some point) most essential action movies. Last week I talked about Kill Zone 2, a movie about a father’s violent quest to provide healthcare for his daughter.
It’s been hard for me to know how to talk about this series ever since The Onion perfectly lampooned its lizard brained ambitions. In part because I’m not sure if they actually like them the way I do, and I don’t want people to think I’m just here to make fun of cartoons. I think some of them are really good in specific ways, but a first glance of the franchise is just close-ups of butts and bumpers, you didn’t realize there were layers to this thing. Look, I know it isn’t Heat or The Driver, but the Hot Wheel Shakespeare who’s writing these scripts during their nap time deserves a Rhodes Scholarship and an honorary case of Mountain Dew.
The most amazing thing about Fast Five is how it made people go back and reappraise 1–4, as if panning for gold. I have enjoyed almost every installment in different ways, but I think this one is just on another level. The action was expanded into a broad offering of much more than car chases. An amusing continuity led to soap opera storytelling in the form of familial conflict and organized crime. And most importantly, the addition of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson finally gave the series a worthy antagonist — and the perfect foil for Dom Toretto.
As the order to Dom’s chaos, Hobbs is everything the series needed up to this point. He’s a towering, muscular, force of angry principal energy, and the ultimate enforcer of the thing Dom hates — rules. He lives by laws and statutes, not Corona-soaked creeds about freedom. When he thinks about arresting people, he changes into “Funderwear” (I used to think he was saying “Thunderwear”, which sounds like clothes for Godzilla, and wouldn’t be far off the mark). I know he was using figurative language when he said that, but he strikes me as the kind of person that has different types of uniquely named workwear for different activities — like arresting people, or taking out the trash (i.e. killing people, but also putting his cans by the curb). I didn’t even know that was a type of person until Fast Five, but now I believe it. He also sweats a lot, on account of how much fun he has following all the rules. Being an overachiever is a lot of work, but you can’t deny the results.
Fast Five marks one of the most effective rebranding efforts a franchise has ever seen, and you could argue The Rock is the catalyst for its increasingly absurd conflicts that have come to define it. His wrestling background spills into character interactions, making every confrontation feel like a decades-old family feud. When he attempts to arrest Dom in Brazil, they practically cut a promo in front of a mob of bystanders. This is the calm before the suplex. When they finally clash, it’s an emotional school yard brawl, with nothing held back.
To my recollection, this is the first time we’ve seen anything like this in the Fast films, and it came after a solid decade of shaky-cam, grounded, soldier-like protagonists (the Bourne era), and comic book blockbusters trying to find their footing in the Green Screen Mansion. I know there’s lots of digital shenanigans in this movie, but its best special effect is The Rock, and they let him cook a little. Watching these two literally smash through walls and windows is a nice reminder of the ethical Action Cinema Guidelines we used to teach our children.
Looking back on the franchise, it becomes clear to me how much we’ve collectively enjoyed things that could outwardly be seen as stupid. It’s hard for me to see John Cena playing Dom’s brother (!) in the upcoming sequel and not laugh hysterically, but I’m also definitely going to watch it. Why? Because drama, excitement, heartache, and humor are real and can be expressed in any artistic medium, including a pro wrestling ring. There is value in that. It simply requires commitment. And if there’s a movie in this series as committed to its own explosive broadway show as two muscle men monologuing in front of an empty arena, it’s Fast Five. It’s the reason I’m still caring at all about these things, and it is my 39th most essential action movie.
