The most entertaining in the series: Fast And The Furious 7 Review and trailer
IF ONLY life was like the movies. Paul Walker died in a high speed car crash during the making of Fast And The Furious 7. In the film itself, he and his boy racer pals walk away unscathed from some of the most preposterous car stunts seen on film
(15, 140mins)
Director: James Wan
Stars: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Jason Statham
On one occasion Walker and Vin Diesel commandeer a sports car from a billionaire’s Abu Dhabi penthouse and careen through the windows into the neighbouring skyscrape... only to find the brakes have gone and it’s necessary to repeat the trick and soar into a third skyscraper.
Walker pulls off another miraculous escape - which had the audience cheering - when dangling from a coach teetering over a cliff edge in the Caucasus; this after parachuting to earth from a transport plane...in his car.
It’s hard to know whether it is all heroically tasteless or an appropriate tribute to the actor. On balance it feels more like the latter.
The star would presumably want to exit on a high and Fast & Furious 7 is the most entertaining in the series: too long but gleefully bonkers with non-stop action and the kind of testosterone-fuelled confrontations that teenage boys will find almost uncontrollably exciting.
Exhibit A: for reasons best known to themselves Vin Diesel’s Dom and Jason Statham’s scowling villain, Deckard Shaw, have a habit of racing into each other head-on, both too macho (or more likely stupid) to be the “chicken” who veers away. Bless.
Fast & Furious 7 - Trailer (Universal Pictures) HD
On another occasion Dwayne Johnson’s eye-poppingly muscular cop, Luke Hobbs, squares up to Shaw with the words: “You just earned a dance with the devil.”
No one can accuse the film of taking itself seriously yet it achieves a surprising poignancy in it’s handling of Walker’s character, Brian O’Connor, elegantly working his departure from the series into the storyline. This required much re-working of the screenplay after Walker’s death and tricky reshoots - Walker’s two younger brothers were used as stand-ins - but you won’t spot any awkward joins or jarring shots.
Brian’s story - that of family man coming to terms with his obligations - feels organic to the whole and concludes with a touching montage of clips from throughout the series.
Nevertheless, in story terms, the picture belongs to Vin Diesel’s crew leader Dom. At the behest of a shadowy government official (an amused Kurt Russell) the growly-voiced knucklehead leads the charge against the bad guys.
These are a globe-trotting terrorist, Mose Jakande (Djimon Hounsou),out to steal an all-seeing surveillance device, God’s Eye (so powerful it could have located Osama Bin Laden in the blink of an eye) and Statham’s Shaw.
The latter - merrily described as a “legitimate British badass” - is the vengeful brother of the crew’s vanquished enemy from the previous instalment, Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). For reasons that are never entirely clear he teams up with Mose.
There’s no point asking questions: speeding between the likes of Tokyo, Azerbaijan, Abu Dhabi and Los Angeles, the plot exists as an excuse for a series of wildly over-the-top set-pieces, plus numerous gratuitous shots of women in bikinis.
British actress Nathalie Emmanuel who plays a computer hacker kidnapped by Mose appears to have been cast purely for her comely appearance in a swimsuit; acting talent not required.
Other cast members, including Michelle Rodriquez as Dom’s former flame Letty who is suffering from amnesia, all have their moments, although Johnson’s Hobbs is sidelined for much of the story, hospitalised after being duffed up by Statham’s Shaw.
The one character who emerges without a scratch is Walker’s O’Connor. The star’s handsome features remain unscathed throughout. If only.
