As the title implies, this is the sixth offering in the movie franchise Fast and Furious. When I walked into the cinema hall to see this movie I did so with apprehension. I am leery of sequels, I haven’t seen any of the previous movies and I frankly don’t have much interest in car racing (which is why I hadn’t seen the former movies). Hence, I was expecting to be bored out of my mind with tedious lines and a banal plot and pointless car races.
I was disappointed. Thankfully.
Plot: Investigating a recent theft of military equipment from a Russian convoy, diplomatic Security Service agents Luke Hobbs and Riley discover that the attack was committed by a highly trained gang that is being led by a former British Special Forces solider called Owen Shaw. (It should be stated here that the trained gang all had very similar physical features to those of the Fast and Furious crew, and it was made even more interesting by the fact that they had never met each other). Hobbs, fearing that the military equipment could soon disappear into the black market, decided to take action and re-recruit the gang to fight these bad guys fire for fire, and take back the $100 million gizmo.
So Hobbs locates the gang’s former leader (Dominic Toretto) on an isolated erotic island but Dom has no interest at all in working for Luke. To convince him he calls Dominic’s bluff by revealing a top secret photo that shows Toretto’s girlfriend Letty, whom everyone had believed dead, alive and well, and working for the bad guys. Dominic then agrees to join the fight, but only to get Letty back, and this is the plot the movie works with, making getting Letty back a greater priority than finding the military equipment (which turns out to be a computer chip, but it hardly gets mentioned in the movie anyway).
About the movie: It had a steady theme of ‘family first’ which was very believable and relatable, creating an easy empathy that most action movies these days seem to lack. Each character added flavour to the movie; it was not just a mindless casting of major names. Even the villain played a worthy enemy, and the base, goal driven, sadistic side of him was shown just in case you dared to like him.
Not to mention the movie was very funny! The lines were just hilarious. Two of the guys in the crew- Tej (Ludacris) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) had an especially good rapport together, so the jokes just kept spurting out, even in the midst of toe-twisting action. And boy, was there action. My!
It was a little lengthy, and some the scenes stretched the credibility factor a lot, but one thing I can say is that this movie was definitely made for the big screen, because there were twists and turns that would leave you gasping and ‘WOAH-ing’ and even clapping with the rest of the cinema audience, and leaving the hall in a daze wondering when it would come out on DVD.
