Spandau Belly Savors The Furiousness Of Fast 5 ***SPOILER INTENSIVE***

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Spandau here………

This one picks up where the last one left off, which is being the best fucking action film series out there right now. Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster have sprung Vin Diesel from jail and are now fugitives on the run. They have made it to Brazil, but are waiting for Vin to catch up. It takes longer to sneak through customs when you’ve got twelve dufflebags of protein shakes. Jordana gets to show off her real life Portuguese speaking abilities, but I doubt this series will ever have an installment set at Yale University, although never say never. She’s holding a friends baby and then has to run out of the room and vomit, and the friend asks if she’s told Paul Walker yet and she says no. I thought this was weird because it’s pretty common to be sickened by the sight of small children and nothing to keep a secret about, but it turns out she herself is pregnant. Ah, movies and their depiction of pregnancy, they always remember the puking, they always forget the big swollen breasts. Once Walker hears the news he know life has changed and he’s going to have to keep them on the run forever so that she never has time to contemplate one of those non-sexy mum haircuts.

They sign up for a heist that involves stealing a car belonging to a drug lord. This series continues to define the shades of moral grey by which thieves look down on drug lords. It turns out that car had the drug lord’s favourite mixed CD in it or something so now he’s pissed. They have some scenes where the drug lord gives a lecture on colonization, in which he explains how the Portuguese dominated native peoples by bringing them gifts. He explains how he does the same thing in buying the loyalty of ghettos with basic services such as water and electricity. Later Vin Diesel fondly remembers his father forcing his religion on the neighborhood by using free food to bring them into his church. Any parallels are unintentional.

I always knew revenge begets more revenge, but I guess heists beget more heists. But the real question’s isn’t about whether these guys can heist, we fucking know they can do that shit. It’s all about the challenge to Vin Diesel’s sexy aura. We know in the first film he seduced Paul Walker from the law, but that was a long time ago. Can he still do it? Can his aura flip the loyalty of a lady cop? Can his aura also flip another male cop at the same time in one big loyalty-busting threesome? After Dwayne The Rock and Diesel’s cars crash-hump and then they fight-hump, it becomes pretty clear. But it’s going to take some real dramatic shit to win over Dwayne. I mean, this is a guy who does his research so that he can find the one clean cop in Brazil and hire her to interpret his grunts and gun shots into Portuguese.

To pull off the big heist they’re going to need almost every supporting character from the previous films (sorry Devon Aoki). That Facebook shit must be really good and not monitored by law enforcement agencies because they all make it to the meeting spot in Brazil with no trouble. Tyrese looks a bit older, he’s still cute and I’d definitely still throw him a fuck, but I wouldn’t put up with as much of his pouting and it seems Paul Walker doesn’t either. But Walker does still have the magic touch in terms of calming Tyrese’s shit down. They are all assigned roles such as driver, driver, driver, sexy driver, driver, driver watcher, and safe cracker.

Justin Lin does a solid job with this series, crafting each of his three installments with a different feel. I only know his directing from these movies. I heard he also directs some episodes of a show called Community, which I don’t think I would understand because I’m not part of any community. I applied to be in the Hispanic and Jewish communities, but got rejected. Maybe I need a better headshot or a new name. Lin is faced with a unique challenge in this one because he has to keep his PG rating so that all the kids who weren’t born when the first The Fast & The Furious came out can go see this. Normally it’s not so hard with this series because it’s all car action, but this time a lot of motherfuckers get shot. And you really are clear on the fact that they are getting shot. It’s not like that opening scene in The Dark Knight where William Fitchner is lying on the floor of that bank but no blood is coming out of him and you’re wondering if maybe The Joker didn’t actually shoot him and Fitchner just heard the gun shot noise and jumped and hit his nuts on a counter corner or something. In this movie you get some blood, but the romance is all pretty chaste, although plentiful. This is probably the flirtiest heist movie ever made.

This movie asks all the right questions. It asks how it can take that moment in Heat when Pacino and DeNiro sit down for coffee and make it bigger, dumber, and more erotic. It asks how the climax from The Gauntlet could be sillier. This is what the filmmaking process is all about kids. I was half expecting this film to end with Jordana Brewster either giving birth to a car or to Jason Statham, but of course we get a nice setup for the next one, which seems will be set in Germany. That’s a good choice, there’s cars there. I saw them when I went there on vacation.

The funny thing being, the more this series makes itself prequels to Tokyo Drift, the more it makes it seem that the Japanese drive outdated cars in that movie. By the time this series works back to Tokyo Drift, I think they’ll have to set up some sort of explanation about how after the Tsunami, the only cars that weren’t radioactive were the ones from seven years ago.

Anyway, I can’t wait for Furious Six. God bless this beautiful series.

Comments (30)

  2. I was half expecting this film to end with Jordana Brewster either giving birth to a car or to Jason Statham FTW!!!

    And I recently (this weekend) started watching Community, after many recomendations. Freaking hilarious! New favourite comedy. More slaptick than Parks & Recreation (which I also recently gave a try to). Well worth a watch Spandau

  3. Yeah….fuck. It pains me to say– but I think this knocked BATTLE: LA outta my top spot for the year.

    Everything about it fucking works. The team aspect was awesome….being able to balance all those characters, plus The Rock’s team angle, plus the bad guy (poor man’s Giancarlo Giannini)– shit is impressive. You could easily watch this motherfucker twice in a row.

    Good way to get around the ‘rooting for criminals’ issue….set the motherfucker in south america and we just assume all cops are bad guys. Professional.

    Three things that really stood out:

    —-Gal Gadot….my passion for the Jewess continues to grow. I FLOSS MY TEETH WITH THE FUCKING LOCKS OF LEVITICUS!!!!

    —-The bad guys attacking The Rock’s motorcade, and the gunfight that follows in those shithole streets. Fucking brilliantly shot…reminded me of Man On Fire.

    —-Vin VS The Rock — that hard ass fight scene put all the hand-to-hand bullshit in Expendables to shame.

    A friend of mine just texted me: ‘In 50 years people will ask where were you when Bin Laden was killed, and you’ll be able to say I WAS WATCHING VIN DIESEL BLOW UP THE FUCKING BOX OFFICE!!’

    Fuck Sam Mendes…..let Justin Lin direct the next FUCKING BOND…NOW.

  6. Middle section is like cinematic nyquil. But the last 15 minutes brought the house down. And Danny’s right about the fire fight where the Rock’s team gets owned. Brilliantly executed. Also Han and Tyrese should have been given more to do or not included at all.

  7. “—-Vin VS The Rock — that hard ass fight scene put all the hand-to-hand bullshit in Expendables to shame.”

    I thought you said The Expendables “delivered” you fucking pussy.

    • YOU FUCKING MISERABLE COCKROACH. I DID enjoy Expendables…so that means no film can ever top it?

      I was thinking of the hand-to-hand action specifically, but looking at both as a whole and judging overall quality, fun factor, and spectacle– yeah pretty much every minute of Fast Five tore Expendables from shithole to tonsils.

      No need to ever watch ole’ Eyebrow Implants again.

    • Haha, nice try. If you really had nothing to hide you would have said “—-Vin VS The Rock — that hard ass fight scene surpasses even The Expendables in badassness…or something.”
      To someone uninformed the way that sentence is phrased would make them think you hated The Expendables and always have. Not going to let you rewrite history like that. You liked it and you will TAKE IT TO YOUR FUCKING GRAVE!!!

    • Agreed. They could take this whole series the Bond route and have each new installment set in a new country. The cast is getting a little crowded though. Everyone but Walker and Tyrese needs to get wasted in the opening of Furious Six.

  8. Fabio, my Brazilian Technician, got free tickets to see this fucker in Norwalk. He said…and I quote, “Dis mutherfucker…wow. Totally crazy…totally retarded…I laugh so hard my cougar she think I lost my head. And the guys in line…they totally go crazy for my WRX when I drive to the lot”

    When asked if he thought this was a “Good” movie…the Brazilian Wrench turned replied. “I tell you…I no say..’good’…but this movie..just go laugh get a good time and take your girlfriend for she to make a blowjob for u..it is this good time”

    Now..Normally I HATE F&F…but Spandaus review coupled with multiple Professional opinions and that of a crazed Brazilian make me sorta wanna check it out…drunk.

  9. “A friend of mine just texted me: ‘In 50 years people will ask where were you when Bin Laden was killed, and you’ll be able to say I WAS WATCHING VIN DIESEL BLOW UP THE FUCKING BOX OFFICE!!’”

    See..it’s THIS kinda love that makes me want to get a neck tattoo, put a fart can on the Honda and go see this fuck.

  10. If, like me, you’ve had a thing for Jordana Brewster since The Faculty you should probably skip this. Looking at what she’s become made deeply depressed. She looks like a cadaver and her forehead also seems to have gained an inch every year since the first movie. Whatever weight she lost Vin seems to have put on by the way. He looks really fucking sluggish in this shit.

  12. Great review. I really dug this movie–and I hadn’t seen ANY of the other Fast movies. I loved the cars, the muscle guys, Mrs. Thor (Elsa Pataky), the stunts, the shootouts, Mrs. Thor, Vin, The Rock, and Mrs. Thor. Best train sequence since, well since Unbreakable, which granted wasn’t all that long ago but shee-it. Either way, Fast Five is the one to beat now for motor vehicle mayhem.

  13. That train sequence felt like a Bond opening to me. Seriously….fucking throw Mendes’ worthless ass off a train and hire Lin….NOW.

    The supporting cast would rock balls: Matt Schulze, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, and Joaquim de Almeida (as Mathis #2).

  15. 4.5 Fists out of five sounds good. I saw this last night. Sure you have to put the laws of physics and gravity aside, suspend disbelief, and plot points from previous movies. Who cares. Guns, cars, fistfights, and women. Expendables vs. Fast Five is a draw.

  17. Oh Tigh, our resident professional homo, is going to completely blow his load with all the testosterone flowing from the screen. He’ll wish he could be the meat in the Vin Diesel/The Rock fight sandwich. And oh yeah, Dwayne Johnson was NOT in this movie. The Rock was.

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