The premiere of “Fast & Furious X,” the beginning of the end (and such a beginning: there are two more installments ahead) of the Vin Diesel-starring saga is quite the event for even the most goofy and self-aware devotees of action cinema. Absolutely everything we’ve come to expect from the franchise, and as always, without measure.
Which is to say, giant spherical bombs on fire, use of giant objects as throwing weapons, over the top villains (Jason Momoa seems to have been inspired by Warner cartoons to compose his banker-dandy-sociopath), people who The seemingly dead and the one who turns out to be alive, the relatives of the second degree or less who come out from under the stones, much about the family as a concept, as an institution and as a self-sustaining micro-economic unit. Long search… ‘Fast and Furious X’ is one hell of ‘Fast and Furious’.
Since the franchise literally swerved to the point of insanity it can still defend itself as the series’ best installment to date, ‘Fast & Furious 5’, the series has made its constant flag and has much more to offer than ever before. The coordinates that were taken there have been denied. The evolution is well known: from illegal racing movies and vintage tuning, it became a madness of insane robberies, eventually becoming a saga of pseudo-espionage and covert missions to save the world, completely self-contained in an invisible world of competition. Agencies and detectives have no relation with anyone except family.
What is unique about the series is that, despite operating in very established and almost rigid codes, it has a strange naturalness, a very unique sincerity that sets it apart from other successful franchises. Of course, ‘Fast and Furious’ are far from auteur cinema: they are pure and hard blockbusters, planned down to the last millimetre, but which retain a certain organic life within them. And that’s because, despite its colossal size, despite its happy predictability, there’s a strange little heart inside.
Vin diesel the man
When Marvel movies, or Star Wars movies, or DC movies go on, they do great. But when they fail, a certain lack of humanity is seen behind the scenes: the worst moments of brutal fan-service, of arguments that only serve to prolong the continuity that the characters who are left are at the offices. I am born out of meetings. Successful franchises limp when audiences perceive that behind them are a bunch of people banding together and manipulating algorithms to come up with mathematically engaging movies. And sometimes they do. but not often.
The “Fast and Furious” movies, and therein lies their part of their whimsical beauty, have found their own identity for themselves: testing formulas, making mistakes and trying again in each installment, delivering what they love and what they Like Let It Go Not so much as the kind of unabashedly honest joke it’s built around, those gods of noise and lead that are only due to a loyal audience that knows what to expect in each instalment.
That doesn’t make them movies with a traditional writer, I insist: they’re blockbusters. But… isn’t there something special about avoiding the currents of the market, the streaming needs, the highly planned business routes of your competitors that make ‘Fast & Furious’ dodge like someone using a Bola helicopter? Isn’t there something lovely about “we already know that continuing to use Jason Statham at this point serves no plot, but… are we going to deny the fans”?
That’s why the “he was a villain, but now he helps heroes” trick can work, in its own way, at first. But a second, third, fourth, and so on indefinitely, until Toretto’s family becomes a kind of suicide squad on wheels of redeemed sociopaths, transcending scripted nonsense to become an internal law that only ‘ Makes sense in ‘Fast and Furious’. Marvel and “Star Wars” try to create heroes that are beyond their fictional universes: “Fast & Furious” forces viewers to become part of the universe of madness without asking permission.
‘Fast & Furious X’ is more in the general genre with some refined elements (for example, the villain is more extreme in order to properly prevent the change of the side – the redemption role he plays in this installment is particularly is insane-) and others that preserve/enhance the general style (the set-piece in Rome is the best and craziest that the saga produces). A series that stays unusually true to itself and its fans in a strange and consistent way. A rarity in today’s Hollywood.
