The Formula is Set

Rating: 7/10 (10 December 2016)

Well, I have now finished watching number five in what appears to be turning into a never ending series (though how it is going to continue now that Paul Walker has passed on, ironically due to a motor vehicle accident, of which the movie warns at the end not to do due to them being performed by professional stuntmen in a controlled environment, is yet to be seen). Actually, this film is probably the one that has moved to set the standard of how the next two movies were to evolve. First of all you have Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson now making an entrance, particularly since Brian O'Conner has decided to throw his hat in with the bad guys and has once again left the FBI. Mind you, with the friendship that he has built with Torretto over the series it is not surprising that he has once again become a crook.
Anyway, O'Conner and his girlfriend, once again wanted by the authorities in the United States (for breaking Toretto out of goal no less), have surfaced in Brazil where they are offered a job to attempt to steal some cars off of a train. Toretto, who has disappeared, returns to assist in the heist, however decides that instead to returning the car to the drug lord of Rio, decides to take it for himself. In all of the confusion two DEA agents are killed, which brings Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) to Rio in an attempt to capture them. Of course, despite the fact that Toretto and O'Conner are basically small time crooks, they are still the heroes of the film, so what we have is a three way tussle where they have unfortunately been caught in the middle.
As I have mentioned, this film has taken a different course to the previous films in the series, and while I am yet to watch the next two, I suspect that they are going to start to follow this format. First of all we have our two main characters, who happen to live in the shadow world but aren't necessarily bad guys â€“ small time crooks would probably be the best way to describe them. Not Robin Hood characters â€“ they don't rob from the rich to give to the poor, they rob from the crooks to give to themselves. Actually, if it wasn't for the fact that they landed up on the wrong side of the Brazilian drug lord they probably would have left him, and his riches, alone.
This is the thing with the film â€“ they upset the drug lord who then decides to attempt to shut them down, and despite the fact that he has pretty much all of the security apparatus of Rio on his side, he still isn't able to stop a handful of determined thugs from taking down his empire and scooting off with his money. Mind you, this is Hollywood, so I probably wouldn't expect to be able to get away with this in real life, though I probably wouldn't be surprised if such people did have their claws into the political and security apparatus of the state. Sure, they might have little influence over the American government, but corruption seems to happen in another, more legal, way there through the revolving door system of political appointments, campaign financing, and K-Street lobbyists. However the suggestion is that in the countries south of the border it is the drug money that controls the government and the security forces, and the gangs are armed much better than the police.
Anyway, this addition to the franchise seems to have moved away from car racing and more towards the action. Sure, they have the occasional visit to an illegal drag racing circuit, but the focus, despite the name, is no longer street racing and now more on the action. Mind you, of the five films that have been released up to now, three of them have involved drug lords, one of them purely about racing, and of course there was the first one. It also seems as if Vin Diesel is the star of the series, and even though Paul Walker also plays a major role, he still seems to play second fiddle (though I have to admit that when he died, I hadn't even heard of him).