Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
Directed by Justin Lin
Hobbs has Dominic and Brian reassemble their crew to take down a team of mercenaries; Dominic unexpectedly gets sidetracked with facing his presumed deceased girlfriend, Letty.
24 connections found
View:
24 films that influenced Fast & Furious 6
What critics say influenced Fast & Furious 6
Fast Five got us most of the way, openly copying the 2001 version of Ocean's Eleven , but FF6 makes the final jump by finally committing to something that was almost certainly inevitable: instead of being an action movie centered around the heroics of Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker),this is an action ensemble movie, something like Topkapi at 100 mph, or the TV Mission: Impossible with lumpy meatheads in most of the prominent roles.
Whereas “Fast Five” was more of an “ Ocean’s Eleven ”-type crime caper, “Fast & Furious 6” feels like a straight-up action film, jam-packed with a series of excellent set pieces that somehow manage to outdo the previous movies in excess and sheer ridiculousness.
Fast Five opened like gangbusters but then spent its middle hour as a faux Ocean's Eleven with nary a tenth of the charisma burning off of one of Clooney's suits.
Dom and Brian decide to pull off a heist, and here’s where the Ocean’s Eleven element comes into play: you’ve got the standard heist movie scenes of assembling the crew, laying out the plan, discussing what they’ll do with their share, and the clever reveal at the end that we weren’t really in on the whole plan all along.
And then there’s that aforementioned battle-royale finale, which puts an auto shop-class spin on an earlier “Moby Dick” reference.
The most surprising moment in Fast & Furious 6 comes when someone mentions Moby Dick.
As Hobbs’ new partner, MMA refugee Gina Carano combines buxom beauty and unbridled lethality as she did in the overlooked “Haywire.”
A womano-y-womano between Carano and Rodriguez is a reminder of how greatly Carano's talents were used by Steven Soderbergh in Haywire.
Only Rodriguez could butt heads with Gina Carano (the MMA fighter-actress of "Haywire," playing Hobbs' partner) and then pull off a surprisingly tender scene with Diesel , who murmurs suggestive metaphors like "You lose traction and the back end kicks out."
Yet while Fast & Furious 6 is firmly set in the world of male fantasy (with plenty shots of shiny cars and fit butts in short shorts), it’s great to see the ladies kick-ass as well, with special mention to professional fighter turned actress Gina Carano who has capitalised on the breakthrough Steven Soderbergh gave her on Haywire to quite possibly become the next big female action star.
MMA fighter and Haywire star Gina Carano is brought in as Hobbs's partner, and as you may have noticed endlessly in the ads, there's a return appearance from Michelle Rodriguez as Letty, whom we all thought we saw dying in a giant fireball at the end of Fast and Furious.
Lin has even brought in “ Haywire ” star Gina Carano (as Hobbs’ right-hand man) to serve as the perfect adversary for Letty, leading to a pair of fight scenes that are almost as good as the Diesel/Johnson brawl from the last film.
Fast Five got us most of the way, openly copying the 2001 version of Ocean's Eleven , but FF6 makes the final jump by finally committing to something that was almost certainly inevitable: instead of being an action movie centered around the heroics of Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker),this is an action ensemble movie, something like Topkapi at 100 mph, or the TV Mission: Impossible with lumpy meatheads in most of the prominent roles.
Their work here stands shoulder to shoulder with the best of the Bond and “Mission: Impossible” films, as does the vivid soundwork by mixer John Casali, designer Peter Brown and re-recording mixers Frank A. Montano and Jon Taylor, who create a 3D environment one needs no special glasses to appreciate.
Then have them steal it — interrupted by at least one gratuitous urban drag-race, and decorated throughout with lots of skinny models, curvy cars and the sort of absurd action that makes Bond and "Mission: Impossible" look dully plausible.
Advertisement
Paul Walker is Paul Walker; if you saw him in The Skulls, you know what to expect (but then again, Keanu Reeves emerged from Point Break a bona fide action hero, so you never know).
This is intercut with a slapstickier fight in which Dom’s buddies Roman and Han (Tyrese Gibson and Sung Kang) have their asses handed to them by an Indonesian silat fighter (Joe Taslim from The Raid: Redemption ).
For action junkies, it's useful to compare Fast & Furious 6 with something like Dredd or The Raid: Redemption .
(He’s already bowed out on F&F7, to be replaced by Saw director James Wan, which is already in pre-production.
A mid-film pit stop in Los Angeles further ties these new events to those of the 2009 pic, while a juicy post-credits tag both closes the “Tokyo Drift” time loop and sets up the already announced “Fast & Furious 7” (to be directed by “Saw” helmer James Wan).
Now, Lin's back for his fourth and final entry in the franchise "Fast & Furious 6" ("Saw" helmer James Wan is taking over for the already-greenlit seventh installment, due next summer), and Universal have pinned real hopes on the picture with a plum Memorial Day release date.
It's the vehicular equivalent of the John Hurt chestburster scene in Alien , albeit with twisted metal spewing forth instead of innards.
Advertisement
Lin and screenwriter Chris Morgan unwisely turn Gibson’s character, Roman, and Sung Kang’s character, Han, into Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan a la the “Rush Hour” series.
The sequel, 2 Fast 2 Furious, already made it seem like the series had reached a dead end, having packed in more neon lights and drug-dealing swagger than every Miami Vice script combined.