Entertainment: Ego Driven Car Races

Rating: 7/10 (3 May 2011)

Ten years after the inception of the fast car action film phenomenon, Fast Five takes the U.S. box office by storm beginning summer early this year. Director Justin Lin ("Anapolis") achieves an opening box office numbers north of 80 mil by amassing all of the franchise's most badass stars including Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludicrous, Sung Kang, Matt Schulze along with adding the brute power of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. As expected, there is no plot or character development what so ever, immediately throwing the audience into the escape of Dominic "Dom" Toretto (Diesel) sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, facilitated by ex-cop Brian O'Connor (Walker) and Mia Toretto (Brewster). Following Dom's escape, Brian and Mia seek the help of an old friend, Vincent (Schulze), in Rio de Janeiro undertaking a job to steal three cars from a moving train as they wait for Dom's arrival. The heist goes amiss, however, they learn two things, first, they cannot trust anyone and second this is just the tip of the iceberg of the ticket to their freedom. Dom, Brian and Mia commence the biggest robbery the series has ever seen with a 100 million dollar target from the most corrupt and powerful man in Rio, Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida). Needless to say, they call Roman Pearce (Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), Han (Sung Kang) among other franchise favorites to evade the clutches of Reyes and U.S. federal agent Luke Hobbs (Johnson).
Not many sequels stand up to their first installments, however, after four semi-entertaining sexy action thrillers struggling to create a worthwhile plot, "Fast Five" does more than equivocating its predecessors. The film's over the top ridiculous scope leaves very little room for slow boring moments. Instead it is full of pointless action scenes including a five-minute foreseeable faceoff between Diesel and Johnson. The battle of the brawny is accompanied by the battle of the sexy between Jordana Brewster and newcomer Elsa Patakay (local Rio cop Elema Neves). And yes there are ego driven car races.
The same reasons that make "Fast Five" better than its predecessors make the film the true mess that it is. A completely flawed grandiose plot combined with ridiculously bad acting and Tyrese Gibson's cliché one-liners and Johnson's childish clever phrases such as "Now give me the veggies" make the script seem like something a 13 year old thought up while playing Need For Speed with his friends. However, by disregarding plot development and clever writing, "Fast Five" has broken through the bonds that have always been holding the series back.
In the end, nothing stands in the films way as the writers completely shirk their job letting the cast loose through a labyrinth of explosive fun. All that matters is that "Fast Five" is the epitome of a Hollywood moneymaker. It is entertainment.