A jaw-dropping stunt where Paul Walker’s character runs up a bus as it is falling into a bottomless chasm and takes a leap of faith into safety made for poignant viewing. Walker died in a car crash in November 2013 and Fast & Furious 7 used stand-ins and CGI for Walker. At the end of the film Walker’s Brian O’Conner walks into the sunset with Mia and their son with a daughter on the way. The happy picture and the montage only underlines the ephemeral nature of life and the illusory DNA of the moving picture. Okay, end of lecture on Philosophy 101 and on to movie review.
Instead of Fast and Furious, the franchise should have been called Bald and Beautiful since most characters sport shaven pates. The plot involves revenge from rogue agent Deckard Shaw, whose brother was killed by Dom and Co in Fast and Furious 6. There is also some kind of blacker ops person Frank Petty who wants Dom’s crew to get hold of some cutting edge tech called God’s Eye and save the creator, Ramsey, from a terrorist, Jakande. The action moves from LA to Tokyo and Abu Dhabi with random stretches of highway in between.
Everyone returns to reprise their roles from Vin Diesel as alpha male, Dominic Toretto, Dwayne Johnson as the impossible muscled Luke Hobbs, Michelle Rodriguez as Letty Ortiz, Jordana Brewster as Mia and Tyrese Gibson as Roman Pearce. The new kids on the block include Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw (he didn’t take off his shirt!), an oddly wrinkled Kurt Russell as Frank Petty, and Djimon Hounsou as Jakande (say goodbye to noble savage avatar forever!).
Everyone growls the cheesy dialogues and moves in slow mo which is quite fun in 3D. There are going to be sequels as long as there are movies, boys and their toys. However none will resonate like this one, because of Walker’s tragic passing.
