We seem so naïve now. When I think back to how it all started I picture me and my flatmate as children. I’m 23 and I’m recalling events from two weeks ago, and yet, we were children. In defence of our childishness, how could we have known any different? No one prepared us for this. How could we have known our random actions, our random careless online scrolling, our decision to watch the entire Fast and Furious Saga in 7 days, would come to define this moment in our lives so dramatically?
People ponder the question of nature or nurture. Would I always make the same choice, was it my upbringing? My parents? Or was I built this way? Was this designed? Dare I say, was this f8?
We had a free trial on the Now TV movie pass. The country was in lockdown due to a global pandemic. The Flatmate had never watched any of the Saga, and I’d struggled to keep up with bits of Fast Five after catching it on TV. We questioned whether 7 days was enough to watch 9 films. This was a race even Vin Diesel would be proud of. We made popcorn, sat down, and um, geared up.
07/05. Fast & Furious (2009)
We began with what we believed to be the start. Immediately we were lost. F&F begins in medias res with Dom and his girlfriend Letty pursuing a lorry. There’s cars, stunts, and explosions. All very exciting but we were detached. Who are these people? Why are they chasing the man in the lorry? Why does he have a lizard? The film whizzed by. There’s Brian, played by the late Paul Walker working for the CIA or FBI, who has history with Dom. There’s Mia who has a history with Brian and shares Dom’s last name ‘Toretto’ leading us to deduce that she’s Dom’s estranged wife. But no, plot twist, she’s his sister.
Early on Letty is killed off screen. She was barely introduced, this loss meant nothing to us. It simply enabled Dom to be angry and propelled the plot forwards. It enabled a scene where Vin Diesel solves a crime by looking at tire marks and sniffing. ‘Does he have powers?’ I asked. ‘Like a car psychic? No, I don’t think so’ The Flatmate responded.
Ultimately we were entertained, there were cars going fast and people being furious. How could we have any qualms? The film delivered exactly what it promised. It was only when we searched for the sequel we’d realised that right at the start of our journey we’d stalled. Fast & Furious is the fourth in the Saga, we’d got it inexcusably confused with the first film named The Fast and The Furious. The. The. The.
The fools we were. No, the fool I was. It was entirely my fault; I was the one who clicked on the film. This was my failure to bear. The Flatmate was mad. We were The Fool and The Furious.
Some would question the titling prowess of a series of films which named the first and fourth film basically the same name, they’d be wrong and dismissive. The words are right there on the screen, don’t shift the onus of the crime, it is your burden to bear. Just as it is mine.
07/05. The Fast and the Furious (2001)
We reversed back to the starting line. It was a new day, and immediately everything made sense. We saw the history behind the characters later actions, the bonds built up between Dom, Brian, Mia, and Letty. The film’s plot involves young cop Brian infiltrating the world of illegal street racing and something to do with stolen DVD players, a much humbler beginning than the explosion filled fourth movie. Our false start robbed us of this progression- from petty theft to elaborate heists and drug lord take downs.
And yet, we felt Dom’s betrayal when Brian is discovered to be an undercover cop. The experience was only tainted by our earlier mistake, we knew Brian’s eventual distaste for law and order, we knew that the crew introduced would be left behind in the dust by later films, and lastly we knew Letty’s doomed f8.
The sexual tension so heavily present we realised was not a result of Brian and Mia or Dom and Letty but was between Dom and Brian. A bromance for the ages. Their love language was expressed through their cars. Each man is sweaty and focussed, stealing looks of admiration of the other as they drive parallel.
08/05. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Our Mubi free trial was ending. We needed to make an emergency stop in our journey to catch Portrait of a Lady on Fire before it was too late. If this isn’t already apparent we are clearly free trial people.
POALOF (as cinephiles colloquially call it) opens with Marianne, a young art student, in late 18th Century France, finding an old portrait of a former flame. She thinks back longingly to her brief time on a remote Brittany residence painting the affluent Héloïse for the eyes of a potential husband. The hook being that Héloïse doesn’t want this potential husband and refuses to pose. Marianne is forced to pretend to be her carer or guardian, much like Brian going undercover to infiltrate Dom’s gang. The ‘look’ is vastly important here, whether through Marianne snatching moments to remember to paint later, Héloïse looking back narrowly missing Marianne’s gaze, or the camera’s look as directed by Céline Sciamma. It’s hard not to think of Laura Mulvey’s writings on the male gaze and visual pleasure. It’s hard not to think of Brian and Dom. There are moments that come close to matching the pair’s electricity, maybe if Marianne and Héloïse were in cars going 80mph they’d be some tension but they’re not, they’re walking slowly around bits of grass and sand. There’s a bit where they run towards a cliff edge but that’s like maybe only 10mph.
We might have thought our love for independent film would be refilled, but instead we longed to get back onto the road.
08/05. 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
Last we saw of our gang, Brian had just abetted Dom’s escape from law enforcement and watched as his sleeveless friend drove in2 the distance. Dom drove so far away he’s not even in 2F2F. Joining Brian instead we have his childhood friend Roman, played excellently by Tyrese Gibson. Sadly, Roman can’t live up 2 Dom’s charisma or match his chemistry with Brian. Roman does however share Dom’s love for sleeveless tops, presuming this isn’t a forced clothing condition all of Brian’s post-Dom friends have 2 submit 2.
Eva Mendes is also in this film. Although I couldn’t tell you anything about her character, mainly because as a trend these films have severely underwritten female characters, and every time I saw her I wondered if her and her IRL husband Ryan Gosling had watched 2F2F 2gether yet. I imagine if he even tries to slight her involvement in 2F2F, she tells him 2 go do one and bore someone else with his jazz talk.
In Ryan’s defence, for the most part 2F2F seemed fairly mediocre, a possible sign of the franchise heading in the wrong direction (that is — away from Dom). The Flatmate and I were hooked by the dynamic between Vin and Paul, and this felt like a distraction from the Saga’s main appeal. Then a car was launched at a boat in the film’s denouement. This moment launched the future of the Saga’s insane stunts, this moment launched the future disregard for gravity, this moment launched a car at a boat.
09/05. Tokyo Drift (2006)
The film opens with our protagonist, a 35-year-old 16-year-old school student Shaun, in a confrontation with mean jock Clay in their school parking lot. Immediately the film asks the audience several questions like what is Hollywood’s obsession with adults playing teenagers in films about? Is Clay a name? Are they really racing their cars to win ownership of a human woman? Is said race begun by another girl removing her bra? Was this film written by a man?
Cool camera tricks guide the viewer’s ‘look’ (you’re not the only auteur here Sciamma) up the front of the fast car to the driver’s seat. When Shaun overtakes Brick -sorry- Clay, his girlfriend quips ‘Guess I’ve got a new date for prom’. Fuming and emasculated, the jock rams into our hero’s car. He seemingly loves prom because his thought process then proceeds to be if he cannot have it NO ONE CAN. He causes a car crash, nearly killing them all. Who could have foreseen this macho fuelled contest over a literal human would end in destruction and no prom for all involved? If Clay knew prom was on the line at the start of the race, he would have never signed up. A human woman is one thing, but he’d never risk prom. Not Clay. This unfortunate sequence of events is partly not Clay’s fault; I’d blame whoever named a child Clay. Ever heard of a smart Clay? Exactly. He is the victim of normative determinism and a bad haircut.
Later in a hospital waiting room, Shaun gives a toothy, bloody smile to the free woman (assuming due to neither men finishing the race, the woman at stake has won agency. Think Dobby’s sock). This moment, barely 15 minutes into the film, forced our own toothy grins. This was the best film yet in the Fast Saga.
It didn’t matter that no previous characters were returning, because this film had one thing none of the others did- Character Development. In F&F and 2F2F everyone begins the movie as incredible drivers, but Tokyo Drift’s Shaun has a glaring flaw. Shaun is bad at corners.
He then has to learn corners. And corners it turns out are fun. Corners are tricky. And corners are cool.
The film also features dozens of flip phones and the best character so far in the charismatic street racer Han. Han is cool, nearly as cool as corners, and for some reason is always eating snacks. But the film also has stakes, and Han dies. This was unexpected and hurt more than stubbing your toe on the corner of a desk. Some corners are dangerous.
10/05. Tesco (2020)
At this point in our journey, I can feel the Saga’s influence drifting into my own life. Walking to Tesco, I raced a stranger. The stranger was none the wiser, which made his victory an even bitterer pill. Walking back from Tesco, I picked a new rival to race, this time winning thanks to a well manoeuvred corner. I lauded my victory over the unaware pedestrian. I didn’t used to be this way, I thought. I never used to call strangers ‘my bitch’ I thought. This was learnt behaviour from the world of street racing.
It is fortunate that I neither own a car or have the license to drive one. Four films in and I’m already too fast and too furious.
When I returned home I discovered that instead of my weekly shopping I’d bought 3 canvas bags worth of Coronas, Dominic Toretto’s Mexican lager of choice.
10/05. Fast Five (2011)
This film begins with Brian and Mia rescuing Dom from a prison van, they do this by driving a car into the van. These characters have a serious issue with solving every problem with a car. If Brian struggled to open a jam jar, I bet he’d consider driving a car into it. Dom, of course, would simply tense his biceps from across the room and the lid would pop off.
This prison break means the gang are now fugitives, bounty to be hunted by bounty hunter Luke Hobbs played by The Rock. And to make things even more dramatic Mia is also pregnant. We’re told the father is Brian and have no reason to suspect it isn’t, so I don’t know why I worded it like that.
Mia’s pregnancy gives Brian pre-daddy anxiety, and he begins having late night talks with Dom about their own fathers. Dom describes how his own Dad would work on cars and hold big family barbecues. The description is so vivid, Dom really paints a scene with his grunts. Mia’s pregnancy has a strange effect on Dom, he becomes so focussed on family that he barely goes three sentences without grunting out the word. The pregnancy seemingly does nothing to Mia, who the film never bothers to give a personality. You can feel the writers scratching their heads, perplexed as to how to write a female character. ‘What do women do?’ ‘They get pregnant, right?’ ‘Yes! Brilliant work, Keith’.
Brian, Dom, and Mia flee to Rio as fugitives and stay with the guy from The Fast & The Furious that resembles Wolverine’s stunt double. It’s exciting to see someone from the 1st film back as Dom seemingly forgot that gang, Letty, and the restaurant he owned. It’s also exciting watching the characters without knowing where they’ll end up, after our false start with F&F and TF&TF, for the first-time future is uncertain.
Wolverine remarks that he saw Brian on the ‘other side’ of a wanted poster, I found this strange because wanted posters aren’t double sided. Is one side bad to be on and the other desirable? How would that even work in this context, would one side be dedicated to criminals and other dedicated to all round good eggs? At this point, I’m not sure if the gang would make the good egg list anyway. They’re low on cash so they decide to steal some money, rather than go back to working at the restaurant from the 1st film like good egg’s would do. The money in question is in a Rio crime bosses vault. This movie has a plot and it’s all about corruption- I think.
To crack this vault, the gang recruits an all-star team from the other movies. There’s a big sequence of random characters from other movies joining the gang, there’s Roman, Ludacris who was apparently in 2F2F, Gal Gadot, and two characters we’d literally never seen before. It was beginning to feel like the Avengers if it was just 6 different Hawkeyes, but then entered… Han.
We’d mourned the loss of Han after Tokyo Drift. Once again, the franchise showed us to be fools. Here in F5 Han is fully alive and eats snacks casually, almost so casually that it feels like he’s mocking the viewer for being surprised he’s alive. Why did we think the Saga would respect time? Tokyo Drift is clearly set in the future. Some might question why, if now set sometime in the 2010’s, the population of Tokyo uses technology from 2006? If those people knew anything about Tokyo it’s that technology wise they are a good 5 years behind every other country. Also, those people need to stop being such nerds.
The gang is now the Family. This is signified by Dom exclaiming ‘Salud mi Familia!’ A line so incredible, that The Flatmate and I repeat it often. We made a lasagne the other day and exclaimed ‘Salud mi Lasagne’ like a prayer before eating.
Dom has become a superhero at this point. He’s chained up by the villain’s gang and there is zero tension because the viewer knows he can just tense his muscles and break free. Seconds later, Dom breaks free doing exactly this. The film only really puts Dom in tricky situations that can be fixed by tensing. We can only presume he has good bowels.
It’s not clear why the Family is set on stopping the crime boss, but The Flatmate and me are locked into the experience. Questioning things seems like wasted time. Wolverine betrays the team at one point, leading to lots of loud voices and us finding out his name is Vince. The Rock and Dom also have a fight while the rest of the cast watches amazed. It’s a very bald and sweaty altercation. Vince, or Wolvervince, returns to help out the family but is killed by the crime boss. Dom would cry if he hadn’t already sweated out all his tears.
Hobbs recruits a Blonde Lady into his team to track down the Family. I call her Blonde Lady because it becomes evident that Hobbs does not know her name. Blonde Lady is good at her job, hired because her husband was murdered by the Rio crime boss making her corruption proof. But not seduction proof, as Dom finds out. After an earlier confrontation, she finds his necklace- given by Letty. Dom finds her apartment and the two bond over their dead spouses. It’s a poignant moment. He takes back the necklace. Dom has figured out the way to a woman’s heart is jewellery. Not buying it for them, but leaving it on the ground near them, stalking the woman in question back to their home, and taking it back. Dom does not believe in finders keepers.
Unless finders keepers involves finding a ginormous vault, attaching it to two sports cars and dragging it through the city destroying everything in its path, and keeping the money inside. Dom’s face, if it’s communicating anything, it’s taunting finders keepers losers weepers.
The Rock, seemingly impressed by the criminals for not being the worst criminals, lets them go. This would suggest that if one finds themselves in trouble with the law, it’s best to just find someone who has done more bad things to point a finger at. Crime is relative. The Family are now rich fugitives, and everyone is happy. Their one last job has paid off.
Han drives into the sunset with Gal Gadot, she asks if he wants to go to Tokyo, he says not yet. Han’s future is set, he will die in Tokyo, the viewer is painfully aware of this and wants nothing more than to slap the snacks out of his hands, shake him and say ‘Never go to Tokyo, Han, all that’s there for you is Death and Corners’ He’d reply ‘Corners!’ And you’d know that it was all in vain and he was doomed.
11/05. Furious 6 (2013)
Full disclosure we have extraordinarily little memory of this film. We were beginning to feel slight exhaustion at this point in our journey. Why was I spending so much time watching when I could be out on the road driving? What I do remember however is this- Letty is back. And, like us, she has amnesia.
Looking back through the exhaust fumes fogging our minds, the plot is basically the Rock recruits the Family (who, for us, were only stealing DVDs four days ago) to stop a team of global terrorists. Why should they care? Because Letty is working with the bad guys and the Rock is promising full pardons.
Blonde Lady, who is now dating Dom, convinces him to get Letty back. She is kind, whatever she is called. When Dom meets Letty for the second first time, she shoots him in the chest. I bet he wishes he stayed with Blonde Lady, who has never shot him. 1:0 Blonde Lady.
How is Letty alive? This isn’t rhetorical, we can’t remember. Like Letty, we can piece together bits here and there. She knows how to drive a car- but can’t remember Dom. We can remember a scene where Ludacris and the Rock make a racist car salesman strip for them but can’t remember why?
One scene however is clear as day. It was always clear in the earlier films that the writers had no clue how cars worked- nitrous oxide or ‘NOS’ would just make them go faster rather than any skill of the driver. But Furious 6 takes it to a new level. There’s a bit on a motorway where Letty is yeeted from her car, and Dom on a parallel track, yeets himself to catch her mid-air. Defying gravity, his body catches hers mid-air and they fall together, crashing onto a car bonnet. Letty asks how he knew a car would break their landing. This feels strange as a car’s density doesn’t just fluctuate depending on the situation. In this instance it does, and Dom is completely fine.
The film ends with a barbecue, like the ones Dom’s dad would throw, everyone is happy except Han whose girlfriend, Gal Gadot, died at some point earlier in the film presumably to become Wonder Woman. Her death pushes Han to go to Tokyo.
12/05. Furious 7 (2015)
We remember this one. How could we forget a film that has a car jump from one skyscraper to another skyscraper to, you’ll never believe this, another skyscraper. Memory as a theme carries through from F6, also still prevalent is the theme and constant reminder of family.
The objectification of women still remains, in one scene we counted 2:1 on the ratio of butt to face shots. The film makes its intentions to only represent bald muscled men clear when Hobbs calls Blonde Lady ‘Woman’ instead of her name. Thus, confirming my theory that he has no clue what her name is and feels too awkward to ask now.
Early on Dom tries to jog Letty’s memories to rekindle their relationship. He takes her out to the desert. While approaching the destination, Letty curiously asks where he is taking her. Dom smiles and replies ‘Race Wars’. Letty looks horrified. What kind of man is this? Letty inspects out the car window considering a quick getaway. She lets out a sign of relief when it turns out to just be a car racing festival with terrible branding.
Race wars aside, Letty breaks things off with Dom anyway. He looks at her with a deep love, while she has no recollection of their shared history, and can’t return it. But after a moment of peril for Dom, her memory returns, and we see a flash of her and Dom’s wedding as she remembers it. I think if my partner got married in a sleeveless vest I’d erase all memories I had too. Nevertheless, this moment was romantic. Like imagine Titanic, not the shoeing-Leo-into-freezing-water Titanic, but steamy-window-carriage-sex-hands Titanic. No, this was better than that, this was a new Titanic where Leo survives, this was steamy-shagging- on-a-raft-to-warm-up romantic.
This moment solidified my feelings of romantic love for The Flatmate. We’d been together for nearly 6 years, but this moment of love between Dom and Letty, made me think of her less as my flatmate and more as my girlfriend. The Letty to my smaller-than-one-Vin-Diesel-bicep Dom.
Jason Statham is the bad guy in this one. He’s formidable and angry, nearly killing the Rock and Blonde Lady. He then kills Han, the film forcing us to watch Han’s death from Tokyo Drift again. At the time, Han’s demise seemed accidental, a tragic consequence of street racing. Updated, the scene now cuts to Shaw revealing himself as the killer, stepping out of an unassuming car, calling Dom to gloat. Shaw then blows up the Toretto family home, with Dom, Brian, Mia, and Child narrowly escaping.
This film has stakes. After gradually becoming superheroes, the Family feels vulnerable again. Don’t jump to the conclusion that this film is grounded by any means- at one point the Rock flexes a cast off from his broken arm. Instead the film has transcended. My Flatmate and I are nervously watching. Brian keeps calling Mia exclaiming he loves her/one last job etc and then being put into deadly situations. This is worrying. We knew that at some point the series would be forced to address the death of Paul Walker, who died in a car crash before filming could be completed on one of the later films. F7 is that film. And boy, does it flirt with the audience’s fears.
By the film’s ending, the audience is begging Brian to retire, and the Saga lets him. The film ends with a genuinely touching moment as the cast says goodbye to Paul Walker’s Brian. A character who has always been up front with Dom, and who is undoubtedly the heart of this Saga. Brian’s retirement in the film acts as a mirror to how unfair Paul’s or any sudden death can be. There’s an element of the uncanny to CGI Paul, built from old footage and new footage of Walker’s brothers, he has a ghost-like quality. This works, as do each of the casts goodbyes to his character, less logically within the story; the characters can and will visit Brian again, but more as a dream-like goodbye to Paul, who they can’t. Letty, watching Brian playing with his kids, states ‘That’s where he belongs’. There’s a meta catharsis here for both the viewers and the cast, with the film granting a what if, a version where Paul retires, happy, with his kids. The film gifts us a final shot of Vin and CGI Paul driving, next to each other, and one final look across to each other before they part ways. Goodbye Brian. Goodbye Paul. We will miss you.
13/05. Fast and Furious: Daily Exercise
My Flatmate and I went on a government approved bike ride. Prior to the Saga, this wouldn’t have done anything for me, but post Saga it fulfilled something deep inside me, my desire to be on the road. Afraid of judgement, I’d hang back behind the Flatmate humming car engine noises, only to then speed up pretending I was Dom in a street race.
One particular imagined street race sticks out. I was pedalling fast to catch up and when parallel I looked across at my Flatmate, only to see her humming the soundtrack from the end of F7. Our eyes met, like Brian and Dom’s at the end of that movie.
I didn’t know this at the time, but independently from each other, we’d both exclusively listened to Wiz Khalifa’s ‘See You Again’ ft. Charlie Puth since the film the prior night. So, when I called over the lyrics ‘It’s been a long day without you, my friend’ she sang back ‘And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again’.
Having been in lockdown for a while now, I thought about my friends who I hadn’t seen in a long time. I wondered what Ludacris, Roman and Letty had been up to. I missed them.
We then drifted apart, like Brian and Dom, which made no sense because we lived at the same address and met again five minutes later.
13/05. F8 of the Furious (2017)
Earlier we false started by watching the 4th film ahead of the 1st. Now we’ve hit another roadblock. Well, this particular issue is less a roadblock and more say, the road not existing. The street we believed to be F8 was in fact an empty space that said ‘unavailable’. F8 was not on the NOWTV movie package.
My Flatmate snapped. Enraged, she picked up a chair and lobbed it out our living room window. We live on the 3rd floor. There’s a storm raging outside and one brewing inside. I responded differently. Tears streamed down my face. How would our journey end? What would become of Ludacris? Roman? Letty? Dom?
I understood my Flatmate’s anger. After 7 movies of machismo, it was all she knew.
I knew what I would next say would only incite more rage. ‘We should watch Hobbs and Shaw’
Her eyes screamed at me. I would need to tread carefully. ‘The free trial ends at midnight. We don’t have time to watch F8 and then Hobbs and Shaw. It’s the next movie, and they’ve got it’.
She picks me up with one arm. Before I can react, my body is launched out of the window. Flying through the air, I think of Dom and Letty in F6, I’ve been yeeted. We weren’t watching F8, but I was meeting mine.
Time slowed down. I think of Dom again. What would he do? Lightning strikes, I’ve got it! My fingers grasp at the end of my laptop charger connected to an extension cable plugged in at the wall. I’m outside the flat now, flailing in the wind like a human kite.
The tears on my face are matched by the torrential rain outside. The clouds, black, bellow with thunder. I try to pull myself back inside, using my laptop cable as a rope, but my arms are limited in motion. I rip the sleeves off my jumper, freeing my arms for full movement and dexterity. In this moment, lightning strikes, this time literally.
My body rages, now completely aflame. I suddenly find a new strength within me. I pull myself back inside with ease.
My Flatmate, now terribly embarrassed by the whole ordeal, apologises and pats the flames off me with a towel. I try to dry myself of the rain, but the moisture is never ending. It’s almost as if I’m producing it. I pass her back the towel to hang up, but her eyes are transfixed on me. She pivots a mirror towards me.
My arms are bare, and apparently juiced up from the lightning. There’s a pitter patter on my shoulders. It’s sweat dripping down onto my body. I look up from my now muscled limbs. My head is completely bare from hair. The flames must have singed me bald.
‘I’m him. I look the spitting image of him’
‘Who?’
‘Dominic Toretto, that’s who’
‘I don’t see it. Maybe Greg Wallace on Holiday’
‘Let’s watch Hobbs and Shaw’
‘Whatever’
13/05. Hobbs and Shaw (2019)
H&S marks the Saga pulling away from Dom for the 3rd time, on this occasion as a result of an ongoing feud between The Rock and Vin Diesel behind the scenes. Apparently the pair went method with their on-screen rivalry, with the Rock calling The Vin a ‘candyass’ on Instagram after he started refusing to film scenes together in F8. This feud is so significant that when you google ‘Vin Diesel The Rock’ suggested is simply the word ‘beef’.
After all this beef and candy asses, how is the film you ask? It’s fine.
Some stuff happens, some stuff happens in slow motion, and some more stuff happens. They filmed a bit of H&S in Glasgow, where I’m keyboard tapping from, masquerading as London. However, if you recognised the location it became very apparent that instead of an epic car chase they were driving in circles.
Idris Elba is the bad guy in this one, he’s given himself the nickname ‘Black Superman’, but his real name is Brixton. Now, the intellectual viewer knows why this is significant. Brixton has the word ‘brick’ in it. Previously in F5, the Rock and Vin Diesel fought but that was very much solid versus liquid. Rock V Diesel. The most that could happen was that the Rock could get theoretically wettened by Diesel or literally wettened by Diesel’s sweat. Now, in H&S we have solid V solid. It’s Rock V Brick. And I’m excited.
Hmm. Sorry. That’s a lie. I’m lying to you. I’m not really excited, and if I am it’s a hollow excitement.
Watching this film, I kept telling myself that it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. And now, I’m telling you the same. But I can’t do it. It’s not fine. It’s not fine. It’s not fine. And here’s why.
Vin Diesel has poured his fucking heart out for this film franchise. After being right at the centre of the first film, he gets forgotten about in the second, he’s largely absent in the third, he then gets asked to become a producer for the fourth film after the Tokyo Drift did poorly at the box office, and guess what? He gave the whole Saga a whole new lease of life. The franchise was running on empty, it’d just driven from Los Angeles to Florida to Tokyo back to Los Angeles, lost searching for a direction, and Vin ripped out the gas tube (I’ll be honest after eight films I have no clue how cars work) and attached it like an IV into his own bloodstream and gave it a purpose. And since then the box office and critical reception has jumped from one fucking skyscraper to the next. This whole franchise runs on Vin. This story is about Dominic Toretto and his Family, not some random side characters like Shaw, who don’t forget killed Han, or whoever Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart play. Because, apparently they are in this movie. That’s fun I guess. Is it? Is it? No, it’s a slap in the face to Ludacris, that’s what it is. Why? Ryan and Kevin, both have their own successful franchises; they don’t need this. Do you know who needs this? Tyrese Gibson.
Vin understood this Saga was about Family. From the fourth movie, the films make this increasingly clear. Too clear some would say, and I’d say clearly not clear enough if the producers chose to forget who made this billion-dollar franchise what it is today. Clearly not clear enough if the producers, loaded up the Rock into their car, and drove the franchise away from Vin Diesel, standing alone in the dust, for the third time. How many more times does Vin Diesel need to grunt about the importance of Family before people listen? Maybe if he didn’t grunt so much and tried really hard to enunciate? Maybe. That’s a good point, I guess.
Ultimately, yes, we were going Fast, and we were going Furious, but maybe what I’d learnt was that it’s about who you are going Fast or getting Furious with.
And the cast of H&S simply wasn’t my family.
The Fast and the Future
As I stroke my now smooth bald head, I can’t help but to dwell on how this franchise about street racing had such a profound effect on my life in this lockdown. When I hear the word ‘corona’ I think of Dominic Toretto’s cold Mexican lager of choice and not the global pandemic ravaging the country. Johnson now makes me think of Dwayne, rather than the horrendously incompetent lying coward that is ex Liverpool defender Glenn Johnson.
Cutting the sleeves off of all my clothes, I find myself thinking how badly things could have gotten without this distraction.
I think there’s a charm to the way the Fast Saga promises easy solutions to corrupt villains. This illusion of justice is appealing, where a car can be launched at a greedy villain and the good guys win. It’s a simple world that works as brilliant escapism from a frustratingly difficult reality. You can’t launch a car at corrupt world leaders or Russian interference in elections. NOS can’t fund the NHS.
I think a good chunk of the Saga’s appeal is how little they ask for the viewer to bring. You can just sit back and enjoy. There is little to analyse or dissect, and yet the actors still give these roles their all. It wouldn’t work if Vin didn’t invest completely in Dom. These are roller coaster films with heart. Heart spelt with an F for Family. These films have Feart.
I think I’d be described as someone who overthinks things, and I also think that if I heard someone describe me this way, I’d think endlessly about the aptness of this assessment. I think I can become slightly obsessive over things, hence the 6000+ words on the Fast & Furious franchise with illustrations. People think that saying you think a lot is some boast about the pains of having a buzzing brain. I don’t want you reading this essay about the Fast and Furious thinking I’m some great thinker, that couldn’t be further from the truth. For me, my thoughts are the rapid fire chatter of a hyperactive 6 year old, the frustratingly constant pop ups on a spammy website, the inane nattering of two golden oldies, probably stemming from the need to always be doing something to avoid the ghastly fear of being alone with myself.
The Saga’s no brains allowed policy, which enforces the notion that the brain is just baggage slowing down the narrative film car, is utterly liberating. Especially in a time when the most disenfranchised people are at the most risk from disinterested governments, the Saga offers a small break from the pandemic, from a never-ending 24-hour news cycle, and from reality.
And yet, despite this, as I now shine my scalp, I can’t help but to think our journey ultimately felt unfulfilling. We hadn’t reached a fitting ending; we’d simply run out of gas. We’d managed to watch 8 films in 7 days but had failed in watching F8 before time ran out.
But I have a new purpose. After being originally scheduled for this summer, F9 has been pushed back into 2021 and the final film in the Saga, F10 (hopefully titled Fast10 Your Seat Belt) is presumably set for a few years later. Before now and next summer, I will find F8 and I will watch it. Even if it means having to start an illegal street racing crew to steal DVD players.
And when I do finally find The Fate and The Furious- I won’t think, I’ll just watch.
…
thank you for reading.
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all the best, matt
