Fast Five

Over the last few summers, there have been too many absurd superhero and sci-fi fantasies that take themselves way too seriously and not enough real world heist and car chase movies that don’t in the slightest.

“Fast Five” will crash through that void at top speeds.

Long has the “Fast and the Furious” franchise been the butt of everyone’s jokes, not even being good enough to pass as trash. The street racing and high speed drifting on souped-up nitro engines got old fast (and furious), and while here there are still more slick cars than you can shake a dip stick at, Director Justin Lin has traded in much of that for a silly but riotous and well calculated heist thriller.

Dom, Brian and Mia (Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster respectively) are all hiding out from the Feds in Rio de Janeiro, and they plan to buy their freedom by robbing over $100 million from a crime boss in the city. To do this, they’ll assemble a dream team of “Fast and the Furious” alums and defy all physics and logic in the process.

But the physics hardly ever matter, because although none of the action scenes are what you would call “well directed,” what with the standard queasy cam and rapid cuts, none of it occurs in excess. Whereas other action movies linger on and on in explosions and fist fights, “Fast Five” is richly varied, and everything that happens hits you with just the right thrill.

Although there is a stylishly done rooftop chase early on in the film, “Fast Five’s” engines really start firing on all cylinders during the last half hour, when a raucous punch-up between Vin Diesel and newcomer Dwayne Johnson finds the two being hurled through walls in a stylishly gritty and intense fashion.

It’s followed by the film’s coup de grace, a chase through busy Rio streets as the boys drag a 10-ton safe behind them, smashing up everything in their paths but themselves. I don’t think even your Ford truck with a hemi can haul that much at three digit speeds, but the scene is so ridiculous yet so well done that it’s impossible to look away.

And still, I may have been bored were it not for “Fast Five’s” other pleasures. For one, if there’s one other modern day hulking mass of an actor with a perfectly round, bald head that sounds more ridiculous reciting one-liners in a rumbling baritone voice than Vin Diesel, it’s Dwayne Johnson. The Rock proves to be an excellent addition to this ensemble, sounding cool even when reciting God-awful lines of dialogue like “Give me the veggies,” a line that makes no sense in context or out.

Two other actors I also like are Chris “Ludacris” Bridges and Tyrese Gibson, who together have hilarious chemistry, as they seem to improvise their dialogue to match the film’s camp level. They’re a welcome comic relief from worthless moments of sentimentality peppered throughout any Hollywood production.

“Fast Five” is trash, pure and simple, but someone’s trash is another’s treasure.

3 stars

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