There was an air of high expectation last night at Entertainment Quarter Hoyts as I arrived for the Circuit Club/Zen Garage charity pre-screening for Fast & Furious 6. It was the sixth chapter in a cult saga that had defined my teenage years, and another addition to the franchise that has been the butt of every automotive joke as far as I’m aware. Albeit some chronological narrative detours, this was meant to be the final and closing chapter of a 12 year old story line, and there were many questions seeking resolution and inconsistencies that needed explanation. Being in the automotive journalism industry, pre-screening invitations were rampant and reviews from friends and colleagues were coming in thick and fast with a resounding opinion that it was complete and absolute shit. Contrary to all this feedback, the negative reviews failed to dampen my expectation, but rather, I walked in to the cinema with a realistic and unbiased preconception of what I was about to watch.
After two hours of viewing I walked out after the credits quite surprised at my enjoyment. I really liked it. That might be the biggest surprise to most of those who are reading and have watched it, most of whom are dismissing the movie as a farce. Now don’t get me wrong, it is definitely not a great must-see movie, in fact, I highly advise you to don’t go back and watch it again. It is a terrible movie which genre confused with convoluted storylines, unrealistic action and very bad humour. But I loved it for all those reasons. I give the film merit for being the perfect addition to the franchise. Yes, I said it, the perfect addition. But let me explain how I feel about the franchise as a whole.
In my eyes the movie was sincere and touching, a story about a cop’s compassion for the criminal. It was as much a drama as an action movie. Although the technical references were all wrong, and the racing was too simulated, it still portrayed a generic profile on what the automotive scene was for me. It sparked up my 12-year-old self’s interest in modified automobiles and racing as it was glamorous and intriguing to me. The thought of being able to have your car as a canvas for your individual expression and dedication, and also being able to quantitatively compare your work of art with others through the sport of racing, was amazing to me. In my mind, Dominic Torretto’s image was the pinnacle of what every teenage boy wants to be; someone that the girls wanted and someone the other boys wanted to be.
Unashamedly, Dominic Torretto and his posse of mechanic/street racer/criminals were my role models as a youth. This communal sense of family exhibited by these characters was something I longed for, and was such a far cry from the much more formal and hierarchical sense of family which was offered at home. It also happened to be somewhat of a subconscious prophesy of the life I gravitated towards because I soon was in a little car crew of my own, attending regular backyard BBQ’s and street meets. But this movie’s themes and social relevance would seldom be repeated again in the franchise.
2Fast2Furious turned the genre of film towards comedy, lines like ‘Where’d you get an Evo from?’ and ‘Ejecto seato!’ from Tyrese Gibson’s comedic relief character Roman Pearce changed the vibe of the sequel completely. With little actual information about the cars themselves, a harpoon capable of disabling a car through piercing a body panel and prevalent use of nitrous, the automotive accuracy was again, not completely there but many movie goers were in a suspension of disbelief and still stuck by the franchise almost purely from the strength of the first.
The addition of Ludacris and Jin appealed to the popular music/urban audience, and the songs ‘Pump It Up’ and ‘Act a Fool’ were on CD track repeat mode in car parks worldwide. It was and still is quite a memorable film for franchise fans, and a rat in an upturned steel bucket being aggravated by a blowtorch to bite into a large man’s stomach will still be my favoured interrogation technique, had I the urge to follow a life of crime. We also see cars jump bridges in a race and a car being expertly landed on a boat to catch the bad guy, but I’ll get to the bad and unrealistic action later.
Tokyo Drift was much hyped and admired for bringing light to the then small scene of drifting, Asian Australian F&F fans everywhere rejoicing, as not only were there an abundance of hot Japanese cars and hot Japanese girls, Sydney’s very own Nathalie Kelley was the super babe that caught bama_boy’s eye and somehow drew her out of the ostentatious Yakuza-supported lifestyle and relationship with the ‘Drift King’ to hang out his country bumpkin self and alongside Han and Bow Wow’s mysteriously well-funded crew of 17-year-old student drifters.
The legitimacy of the action was approved by none other than the actual Drift King, Keiichi Tsuchiya himself, but that’s not to say a few of the stunts weren’t absolute Hollywood hallucinations. I mean, drifting across the Shibuya crossing at peak hour and having hundreds of pedestrians somehow have enough foresight to make a perfect path for two cars going sideways at quite some speed? I have troubles getting people to walk across the road fast enough at a zebra crossing, let alone one of the world’s largest and densest pedestrian scramble crossings. Also, how does a 350Z have enough momentum to be breaking traction, go sideways, not gutter any wheels and still make it a few levels up a spiral car park ramp? I have a 350Z myself and these are no agile ramp beasts in standard form, let alone one with a wide body Veilside kit.
Movies 4 and 5 were of little importance culturally, but still continued the trend of physics and gravity defying special effects, bridges and explosions, a horrendously rampant use of nitrous oxide, and the blurred line of criminal activity and law enforcement. The addition of more American muscle cars, The Rock and the foggy breakaway story of Letty being alive were there, I feel, to defibrillate the slowly dying interest and somehow revive purity of the franchise. Was there ever really purity though?
If, as a majority of my colleagues say, the original film and Tokyo Drift were the only films in the franchise to give slight insight into the actual automotive culture, then that makes only a third of the franchise’s output to ever paint a picture of the scene that was brought to light in the first film. What then perhaps, would the franchise have been if 2Fast2Furious or Fast Five happened to be the first film in the series? Would the automotive scene have given this film the same fanfare as the first? I’d say probably not. The first film set a big standard in how the franchise should have been, yes, but as for the films as a collective whole, the running theme of the films was that of improbable stunts, cars doing impossible things on impossibly long stretches of road with never ending gearboxes and manifolds posing as floor pans.
Here brings me to my justification of enjoying the latest instalment to the F&F series. If you were going in to see a rehashed version of the first movie, then you would be disappointed. If you went to see informative, realistic action with real driving skill and honest narrative, you would be disappointed still. If you, like me, went in knowing that the F&F franchise’s grip on reality went to shit after Vin Diesel drives a Buick Regal GNX under a flipping, flaming fuel tanker, then you would have already known the type of farfetched action and physical feats that this series exudes.
The F&F series was not so much a farce, but a satire of itself. Without giving away too much about the actual movie itself, the action and story line is indeed very implausible and fanciful, with little Alfa Romeo’s keeping up to cargo planes at take-off speed, people jumping out of cars and across bridges to catch people mid-air and landing on a metal car softly enough to walk away without so much as a single scratch, and not forgetting an epic amount of brute superhuman strength displayed by Samoan Thor.
This all is why F&F6 for me was a perfect addition. It fit right in to the recurring trend of the franchise, and was just unbelievable enough for people to consciously know that it’s stupid, but believable enough for the audience to be under the impression that the film was taking itself seriously. I’m sure the film does what it’s meant to do. It’s the mutual disappointment about the film that people bond over. It’s the feeling of being able to look over at your friend in the cinema and exchange nods because you both know how dumb and outrageously fictitious a certain scene was, even though it was definitely expected to be as such.
Drawing back to the first movie and everything that has possibly happened in the last 12 years, it’s hard to say that you haven’t enjoyed these films, terrible or not, there was always a scene you remember or a quote you recite. It’s easy to just walk out of a movie if it’s terrible, it’s another to stay until the end of a terrible movie just because you have faith that it will be worth seeing. It’s definitely worth seeing this movie, even just once; you’ll surely be missing out of a big chunk of the story otherwise, whether it is of the actual narrative itself, or missing out on the experience of going to see it with family and friends.
I am a fan of these films as much as I am a fan of what we gain as a culture from these films. People plan drive-in nights, F&F marathons, charity pre-screenings and all sorts of events to celebrate the premieres or other related calendar dates of the F&F franchise. A fan of the actual movies or not, they are iconic to the modified car culture, even though the storylines and themes have deviated from the 2001 idea of street racing. Think back, even back then the action was unrealistic and logically inconsistent. What’s changed? Sure, they don’t race for slips, the stakes are higher, and the cops they deal with look unnaturally large and vascular, but it returns full-circle in the end, family is reunited and you can’t help but also feel like everything has been brought back down to earth again.
I mean, isn’t it nice catching up with old friends? We all have social groups and there’s always one dumb dickhead mate, but he’s your dumb dickhead mate. Just like there will always be cheesy, overdramatic action movies, ‘The Fast and The Furious’ franchise will always be our culture’s cheesy, overdramatic action movie, and that’s just how I like it. Winning’s winning.
PS: We raised $3510 for the Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation! :)
PPS: Photos by OFIM.
Registration table. Note new CC cards and also the new Fast & Furious Showdown game by Activision (which we raffled off on the night).
Narada and Sergio draw the raffle winners.
Winners be grinners.