Front Row Seats

Rating: 7/10 (12 April 2015)

We were only lucky to find front row seats! And we had to book ahead of time. Heath Ledger may have received such a grandiose farewell in Batman, the only difference being in this case that "Furious 7" is in all actuality an obituary to the deceased star.
In Mirdiff City Center's Vox Cinemas/Dubai, Paul's first appearance in the film regurgitated watchers to sigh mournfully. It is sad, and it is safe to presume that the increased footfall, compared to the prequels, can be attributed to his death. Net gen attendees, for one, were motivated by the event to watch the movie on the big screen instead of waiting for pirated DVD copies to surface the internet hence, I hope Walker's family receives their fair share of the action.
It is a Bollywood type surreal action film where the action part is extremely exaggerated. The drama within is predominantly lame and disengaging. I love Diesel, I hoped he'd pull up something similar to his role in "Find me Guilty," yet his performance hereof is at par with the sequels of Fast and Furious; an unconvincing alpha-male with a streets attitude and a fetish for vengeance. It is not hard to believe that the line "I am Groot!" translated across plethora of languages, by Vin himself, in "Guardians of the Galaxy," was more convincing. I find it ludicrous that Ludicrous, Walker and Gibson's roles are more entertaining, albeit for the wrong reasons, with their gags and puns. Not a single actor among the cast outperforms his/her role and this is the second sad point.
That said, the movie has some artistic dialogues. A telephone conversation between Brian (Paul) and Mia (Jordana), which is poorly acted, incorporates Verbal Irony in Dramatic context – the crowd already knows how the real story concludes. Moreover, the dénouement of the conflict, due to real life circumstances, is dramatically convincing even when underperformed by a disengaged cast.
I personally love it, which may sound sarcastic given my previous remarks, but I really did. Although long, and action sequences that should not live up to more than milliseconds in real life extend to durations of 30 plus minutes, the movie is, in every bit of it, entertaining. All in all, "Furious 7" is a must watch, we owe that much to Walker's family.