THINGS I MISSED: FAST FIVE

I've never seen any of the "Fast & Furious" movies. I'm not a snob, I just never got around to them. So I decided to dip my toes in with the most recent installment "Fast Five," which was a surprise critical and commercial hit. It can be an interesting experience, dropping into a franchise five installments in, there is clearly a lot of back story I missed, but filling in the gaps is kinda fun and it adds dimension to the story. If I get some details of the mythology wrong in this review-I apologize.

The film presumably starts off where the previous installment left off, with Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) heading off to jail. Off course, his friends Brian (Paul Walker) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) bust him out in a manner involving fast cars. How no one is killed is beyond me, but oh well, moving on.

The gang finds themselves hiding out in Rio. They say that they're going to go straight, but that never works out in movies about criminals and soon they find themselves embarking on one. last. job. This time against a local drug dealer. Things are complicated due to the arrival of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson who plays Luke Hobbs, an elite FBI manhunter. He's a badass dude, he's got this whole elite team dedicated just to tracking down Toretto and his crew, and a big SUV that even Batman would envy.

It's important to mention that SUV because, that's the kind of movie this is. It has people in it who have 'stuff' going on, and that's nice, but really, people in this movie are defined by what they drive. Toretto with his Dodge Charger vs. Hobbs with his Bat-tank. It's a testosterone soaked rivalry that you just know will end in pain. When people do talk, it's in movie trailer dialogue. They are constantly saying things like, "Let's settle this once and for all" and "We need a team."

The heist plot is fun, even if it is out of the action-movie cliche handbook. The preparation sequences are several notches below Oceans 11, but they are more than sufficient for this type of movie.

So lets talk turkey - the action scenes are top notch, really well done. Director Justin Lin, a vet of the franchise, understands how to shoot an action scene. He knows how to set up an action scene so the audience knows what's where and who's who. That should not be high praise, but the action genre is in such disarray that it kind of is. Perhaps it is a testament to how difficult action film making truly is. But this film pulls it off with boldly dumb style. There is a fun sequence involving a train that is so ridiculous that I broke out into applause. Also, the safe dragging conclusion causes memorable amounts of property damage, as it should.

"Fast Five" is a film for the 10 year old boy in all of us. Cars go fast, and sometimes go boom. The title is fine, though Vroom Vroom 5 - This Time In Rio would have worked too.

Grade: B