ON July 22nd 2001, smack dab in the middle of the American summer movie season, an unassuming action movie set in the illegal street racing subculture released and became a surprise success.
20 years later, ‘F9’, the 9th instalment (10th if you include one spin-off) is on the edge of release in the US (a local launch is unlikely because of the current lockdown), and a once small-scale franchise is now punching on the level of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars.
Blessed with a unique combination of increasingly over-the-top automotive action, sincere to the point of melodrama emotion, and ridiculous intentional and unintentional comedy, the Fast and Furious franchise (henceforth referred to as F&F) has something for everybody.
The laws of physics don’t apply
Rewatching the movies back-to-back over a few days, one can see how the action in these movies escalated from the ridiculous to the utterly absurd (that’s kind of a good thing). In 2 Fast 2 Furious (one of the great movie titles), the big final stunt involves jumping a car onto a boat. In Furious 7, a sports car flies from skyscraper to skyscraper.
Yeah, nuts.
It’s kind of funny that as comic book movies have become the biggest story in mainstream cinema, the characters in F&F have pretty much become superheroes themselves. They sure take as much punishment as any Avenger.
While the first three movies centred around illegal street racing, the fourth movie (with the boring title of Fast & Furious) began the transition to big heists and eventually saving the world. The movies also went from being loosely connected, to being a more connected series, with cliffhangers at the end of the latter movies – reminiscent of the Marvel movies.
Arguably, ‘Fast Five’ is the high point of the franchise as it introduces The Rock as an antagonist (who of course becomes an ally) and united characters that up to that point had not yet met, almost like when the Avengers became a team. It also had a bonkers final action scene, as two race cars drag a safe through the streets of Rio.
It’s all about family
But if the F&F movies were all about nutso action, it’s doubtful they would have resonated so much with fans around the world. Despite the car chases, the gunfights and knockdown brawls, these are wholesome movies, with series patriarch Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) reminding everyone of the importance of family.
Over the course of the series, the growing and evolving family of street racers turned government agents don’t forget to make time to break bread and say Grace. They also stick together, no matter what.
At one point, even though Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) gets amnesia and briefly becomes a bad guy, Dom and the team don’t turn their back on her.
Though in one notable instance, the series seemingly forgot the importance of family when villain Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) is embraced by the team, despite having killed off fan favourite Han (Sung Kang) at the end of ‘Fast and Furious 6’.
(The fan outrage led to the #JusticeforHan movement, with the hashtag apparently successfully resurrecting Han for ‘F9’.)
Sadly, the real life family behind F&F was visited by tragedy when Paul Walker (who played series co-lead Brian O’Conner), died during a break in the filming of ‘Furious 7’. This led to the fillmmakers to use his brothers as stand-ins, as well as using digital effects to recreate his face for some scenes.
The movie also ended on one of the best tributes to a fallen cast member, as Paul/Brian drives off into the sunset while ‘See You Again’ by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Pugh plays in the background. In fact, the song was specifically commissioned for this purpose.
The future of going fast
Make no mistake, the F&F series has been incredibly lucrative.
In 2001, ‘The Fast and the Furious’ had a budget of US$38 million and made US$207.3 million worldwide. In 2017, ‘The Fate of the Furious’ (the eight movie, get it ‘fate and eight’) cost US$250,000 and made US$1.2 billion worldwide (one billion of that was from outside the US.
This series is a box office juggernaut and the only real competition are superhero movies. In many countries, F&F is bigger than Star Wars. Though a recent controversy around new franchise addition John Cena, has threatened the newest movie’s box office in China.
Despite the death of one of the leads – as well as pandemic-related delays with ‘F9’ – the series will move forward with two more movies, with the last one scheduled for 2024. Who saw that coming in 2001? – The Vibes, June 25, 2021
.jpeg)
