By Solana Willis

To understand how the modern action film has been heightened, look no further than the Fast & Furious film series. This multi-billion dollar franchise began with a simple enough plot— Paul Walker must go undercover to investigate a crew of import street racers suspected of robbing 18-wheelers in the Los Angeles area, led by Vin Diesel. Nearly two decades and eight films later, and the Fast & Furious “familia” has transformed from your average street racers into an elite counterterrorism task force composed of master detectives, hackers, hand-to-hand combat specialists, and of course, expert drivers with near superhuman abilities.

The 5th entry (and the 4th chronologically) in the series introduces us to this new iteration of the crew, made up of mechanics, street racers, and drug runners plucked from the previous four films. It opens with Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster using their driving prowess to rescue Vin Diesel from a high security prison bus. This scene quickly and effectively establishes that these are not the run-of-the-mill racers we remember from the earlier films. What follows is two hours of non-stop action, each stunt more Ludacris[1]  than the one before. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who plays an antagonist-turned-ally explains their newfound superpowers best:

“The men we’re after are professional runners. They like speed and are guaranteed to go down in the hardest possible way… and above all else, we don’t ever– EVER– let them get into cars.”

The stunning centerpiece of the film is an unbelievable stunt that takes the film series to audacious new heights. Diesel and Walker drag a 9,000-pound safe through the streets of Rio, alternately dodging and taking out policemen as they go. The casual, yet captivating presentation of this over-the-top scene completely destroys any presuppositions that modern action heroes— no matter how grounded— must abide by the rules of reality. By the end of the scene, the crew is innately aware of one another’s thoughts and movements down to the millisecond, working in perfect sync via a psychic-car sense they have magically developed over the previous 10 years of racing and stunts. Without a moment of doubt in their abilities, and zero questions regarding their constantly heightening skills, the film asks the audience to accept the ridiculous as normal and meets absolutely no resistance in the process.

In Fast & Furious 6, the crew’s transformation from normal folks living in LA, to an elite group of world-saving, car-based superheroes is complete. When Vin Diesel uses his car-tuition to sense a recently-resurrected Michelle Rodriguez is about to be launched off a Chieftain battle tank, he whips his car around, stands atop it, and catches her mid-air— effortlessly absorbing the impact as they both rocket towards one another going 60 mph in opposite directions.

Furious 7 was released in 2015, and by this point in the series, logic and reason need not apply. Dwayne Johnson is propelled out of a 10th story window by an explosion, and lands safely, crushing a vehicle below in a scene more befitting the Hulk than a U.S. federal agent. This astounding feat is quickly dwarfed by a subsequent scene featuring a purposeful head-on collision that destroys two vehicles, yet somehow leaves both drivers unharmed and ready to have a wrench fight. Mere moments later, the crew parachutes their cars out of a plane into the middle of a cliffside road in the Caucasus Mountains. Paul Walker leaps off a bus careening over a cliff, miraculously grabbing hold of Michelle Rodriguez’s rear spoiler thanks to a perfectly timed drift— and that’s not even the climatic stunt of the film.

Through an absolutely absurd level of heightened action presented without an ounce of irony, Fast & Furious has reinvented itself from an early-aughts B-movie into a box-office-record-breaking summer epic with the same level of spectacle as a superhero movie. No matter how large the stunt, or preposterous the leap in logic, there is not a moment of doubt in our heroes’ ability to deliver. Regardless of the circumstance, we can count the Fast Family to rise to the occasion, reveal a brand-new skill you never thought possible, and bend the laws of the universe if they have to complete the job. These films epitomize the best of balls to the wall, commercial American film, and make for the perfect at-home binging marathon.


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