Movie Review: Fast and Furious 5: Rio Heist

An early poster of Fast Five

Fast and Furious 5: Rio Heist is the fifth installment of the Vin Diesel-Paul Walker movie Fast and Furious.

Short summary that doesn’t really spoil the movie:
The movie starts with Dominic Toretto (Diesel) who gets sentenced to years of imprisonment with no possible chance of parole. But of course he has made his way to freedom, and this time he lives it in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (making him the most wanted criminal in territories).

The story revolves around Dominic, Brian (Parker) and Mia (Brewster) and their new found team of the finest racers for them to have one last chance of freedom. In order to be free, they get face to face with Rio’s finest drug dealer.

The stunts
Oh yes, Fast and Furious will be nothing without the stunts. The train scene at the early part of the movie is insane. My heart was racing all throughout the stunts such as encounters with the much-obsessed cop Hobbs (Johnson). The final stunt is, as always, stunning. Hands down to Dom and Paul for being able to tow a massive vault without sacrificing the thing that made them famous (and notorious): speeding up.

Common things with the previous FF movies:
I cannot shrug off the fact that Fast Five contains snippets from the previous FF movies. Of course recurrent scenes and sub-stories are part of a movie series. Let me start with cops. Paul was a cop who went undercover in FF1 and eventually became allies with the Torettos. Paul let Dom escape but was still torn between his job and his friendship with Dom. The we-are-not-exactly-the-enemy-here stand does not go off. There has got to be a third party or some bad people between cops and the main characters (cannot aptly call them the heroes). Then, of course, the insane car speed and the jeerings during car race.

The title:
Fast and Furious 5: Rio Heist is a good and not-so-good title. Fast Five (shortcut) is good, but I have some problems with Rio Heist. It deeply reminds me of one of the so-so movies of 2001. After watching the movie, somebody suggested that the title should be Fast Five: The Vault. I can’t not agree more.

The characters:
There are more interesting characters in this movie. First, Dom and Paul create a team of badass people to complete the misison. The sexy Gisele (Gadot) is a badass speed driver with a Korean lover Han (Kang). Ludacris and Don Omar join the gang. Funny scenes include lines from Roman (Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), Leo (Calderon).

Dom finds an ally in Elena (Pataky), a cop who does her job passionately to get back on the bad guy Reyes (de Almeida) for killing her husband. Still not over Leticia’s death, Dom sees the sadness in Elena’s life. I just gave out a clue on who’s dating who in the end of the movie.

Mia takes the backseat as she is only limited to doing a few stunts.

Dom’s new elite team does a great mission with some satirical acts as side dish.

The final stunt is insane. And I swear I could have watched again a portion of the movie (about three minutes) that explains how the twist was done. It’s a mind fuck.

Don’t tell me that some stunts and scenes are impossible because Fast and Furious is about the impossible (sans the superhero stunts) but is still stunning.

I advise you not to leave your seat during the tail credit. Something comes up, something that involves a ghost.

All in all, I give this movie 5 out of 5. Vin Diesel did great in acting and producing the film, and as always, it has awesome stunts, lines, plot and cars.

There has got to be a sequel. I don’t really believe in ghosts.