The Fate of the Furious
Director: F Gary Gray
Stars: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Charlize Theron, Kurt Russell
Four stars
Gargantuan. That is the only word that really suits The Fate of the Furious, the eighth full-throttle episode in the joyously silly Fast and the Furious franchise.
This is a film in which Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson catches and tosses back a grenade as if it was a baseball. It is a movie where dozens of empty cars, their on-board computers hacked by Charlize Theron’s villain Cipher, spring to life in the streets of New York – “zombie time” as she calls it. And, most jaw-dropping of all, a half-submerged Russian sub chases an orange Lamborghini through the ice like a demented snowplough.
It is insane – but new-to-the-franchise director F Gary Gray (who previously worked with Theron and returning Furious 7 villain Jason Statham on the 2003 remake of The Italian Job) wisely does not try to resist, instead going with the flow.
This is the first film in the series since the death of original co-star Paul Walker, and the franchise's regular screenwriter, Chris Morgan, handles his absence gracefully. Last seen riding off into the sunset in a touching scene at the end of Furious 7, Walker's character, Brian, is not killed off-camera, he is simply left out of the fray, living a happy and peaceful life. Without giving anything away, there is a lovely grace-note at the end ensuring that though he is gone, he is not forgotten.
The film begins in Cuba, with gang leader Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), now his wife, on their honeymoon. But rather than being able to relax, Dom is accosted by Theron’s dreadlocked hacker, who blackmails him into working for her.
Why? The film keeps that a secret, at least for a while, leaving Dom’s gang mystified. Soon, he is stealing electromagnetic pulse weapons and nuclear codes at Cipher’s behest (a woman so skilled, she erases her digital footprint every few seconds).
Morgan, who has worked on the series since the third film, Tokyo Drift in 2006, does a credible job of juggling the franchise's ever-swelling ranks.
Statham’s Deckard Shaw, last seen heading to jail, and Dwayne Johnson’s Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs lock horns as they are forced by Kurt Russell’s returning government spook Mr Nobody to help track down Dom.
A prison breakout featuring Statham and Johnson – who is briefly incarcerated following Dom’s defection – is one of the film’s high points.
If that scene feels like it was ripped from Gareth Evans's Indonesian thriller The Raid, Statham's rampage through Cipher's "undetectable" plane, as he kills guard after guard, is pure John Wick.
But given this is a film series about a bunch of crooks, a little cinematic larceny is perhaps inevitable.
For his part, Statham, who is protecting a precious cargo all the way through the latter scene, delivers a comic-tinged career high that shows he is more than simply a bruising action star.
As ever, there is plenty of bickering between Toretto gang members Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), though quite what inspired the producers to hire Helen Mirren to play a foul-mouthed Cockney crime matriarch is anyone’s guess.
Even for the Fast films, this feels a little over-the-top (her gangster's moll alongside Bob Hoskins in 1979's The Long Good Friday was much better).
Still, hopping between Havana, New York and Russia (albeit with Iceland standing in during filming), The Fate of the Furious is not a film to wait for the traffic lights to change before speeding on to the next set piece. Roll on Fast & Furious 9.
artslife@thenational.ae
