FAST & FURIOUS SIX
DIRECTOR: Justin Lin
CAST: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Luke Evans, Michelle Rodriguez
CLASSIFICATION: 13 LV
RUNNING TIME: 130 minutes RATING: ***
HOLLYWOOD’S triennial excuse for Vin Diesel and Paul Walker to get behind a wheel and have some fun is back. Again.
This time around there’s a little less heist and a whole lot more cars, with racing on the streets of London to boot. At one point the film crew even emptied out Picadilly Circus – which in and of itself is no mean feat – for a night-time car chase scene. Especially when you consider that where the guys end up is nowhere near where they started.
But, hey, this is the movies and anything goes. Including bringing back people from the dead. In this film franchise, movie two was the only one where none of the major good guys died, but with this one they go in a completely different direction.
At the end of number five we saw that Dominic Toretto’s (Diesel) main squeeze, Lettie Ortiz (Rodriguez) was being brought back to complete the family circle.
The Rock, aka Baby Oil in this film, or rather Agent Hobbs, comes looking for Dom and new daddy Brian O’Connell (Walker). He wants help in hunting down ex-SAS operative Owen Shaw (Evans), who likes blowing things up and driving go-karts that go really really fast.
Evans’s crew cannot only outdrive Toretto’s crew, they also fight better, but that’s okay, Toretto’s team are FAMILY.
Look, don’t go looking for an intricate plot or amazing charac- ter development or even credible pacing in this film.
This is a Fast and Furious film, so it is an excuse to put people behind the wheels of stunt cars.
So, let’s run down the checklist of Fast and Furious musts:
Cheesy lines? Check.
Wooden acting? Double check.
Scantily clad priddy girls hanging out of highly polished, cool cars with growling engines? Doh. Of course.
Long gazes between our leads at inappropriate moments?
That’s an affirmative on overly sentimental family hokum.
Impossible car stunts so laughably improbable as to make the audience spill their popcorn?
What do you think?
And quite a good bit of it takes place at night, so some of the dodgier sequences are hidden by some nifty cinematography which, incidentally, includes some great tracking shots of London all lit up.
Gorgeous city, really.
Not only do the guys (and gals) get to slum it up in some beautiful automobiles, but they also find the world’s LONGEST airstrip out in the Spanish countryside and then do the longest action sequence EVER, involving an interminably taxiing plane and indestructible cars.
Here there are no consequences, no one (including the audience) gets an adrenalin rush, no one gets an emotional expression on the face or even a rush of blood to the head.
And when all else fails, they bring out the NOS.
This is a Justin Lin special, low on plot cohesion and high on referencing the old movies… Which is soooo unnecessary because you’re only going to watch number six if you’ve watched the others, so you don’t need reminding of what happened before.
Surprisingly, the film does have a high comedic one-liner quotient. So, if they were ad-libbing then, keep it up guys – that’s your saving grace.
That and, wait for the credits to roll a bit and… voila, there’s an extra sequence that points to film number seven.
All I can say folks, is, Hummingbird.
If you like the Fast and Furious franchise, then this is for you.
WIN! WIN! WIN!
To celebrate the nationwide release of this film, Tonight is giving 5 lucky readers the chance to win a Fast And Furious 6 hamper.
Each hamper consists of an adult T-shirt and cap with the Fast And Furious 6 title treatment, a PS3 video game and the Fast And Furious 6 soundtrack. To stand a chance of winning, all you have to do is answer this very simple question:
Who plays Dominic Toretto in the Fast And Furious series?
Send your answer, along with your name and contact details, to [email protected]. Please put "Fast And Furious 6 competition" in the subject bar. The competition closes on Wednesday, May 29, at midnight. Only the winners