Furious Seven

Released: April 2015

Director: James Wan

Rated PG-13

Distributed by: Universal Pictures

Run Time: 137 Minutes

Cast:
Vin Diesel: Dominic Toretto
Paul Walker: Brian O’Connor
Jason Statham: Deckard Shaw
Michelle Rodriguez: Letty
Jordana Brewster: Mia
Tyrese Gibson: Roman
Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges: Tej
Dwayne Johnson: Hobbs
Kurt Russell: Mr. Nobody
Tony Jaa: Kiet
Djimon Hounsou: Jakande
Ronda Rousey: Kara

I’m going to admit something:  I’m not a gearhead.  I don’t really know a whole lot about cars, other than knowing how to drive them.  If you ask me something about the engine or anything mechanical about the thing, I’m going to end up giving the “deer-caught-in-the-headlight” look.  I know about basic maintenance like changing tires, but outside of that, I’m pretty damned clueless.  That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a good car, though.  I’ve always wanted a 1973 Shelby GT500.  Beautiful vehicle.  When it comes to movies about cars, though, I tend to pay more attention.  Some of the most classic car movies come from the 70s:  Vanishing Point and Gone in 60 Seconds are two of my absolute favorites.  Are they good movies?  Not really, but they really weren’t about story or plot development.  The cars were the characters, and that’s all that mattered.  They were very simple, showcasing some of the greatest chase scenes and stunts I’ve ever seen in a movie.  My generation didn’t really get a good car movie until The Fast and The Furious came along in 2001.  That was a movie that really took the world by storm.  14 years later, we have a SEVENTH installment of the franchise.  You could say the series got really popular.

Opening on a desert roadway, we see Dominic Toretto and his girlfriend, Letty driving towards a massive competition called Race Wars.  After beating a competitor, Letty has a breakdown and runs away from Dom.  The film cuts to Agent Hobbs’ office where he discovers a mysterious person hacking into his computer.  After a massive fight that lands Hobbs in the hospital, we see an image on a computer screen of the man’s next target, Han.  We cut to O’Connor getting into a minivan with his son, Jack.  Dom notices a strange package on the porch of his house, when he gets a call from somebody in Tokyo.  Grabbing Letty and jumping from the porch, the house explodes.  The man who is targetting Dom is Deckard Shaw, the older brother of the previous film’s villain, Owen Shaw.  After the first three films, which were mostly about racing, the formula changed with Fast and Furious, the fourth movie.  Instead of just being another race movie, it became a heist movie, which is where this series truly shine, in my opinion.  Yeah, the first movie was awesome, but the second two movies were….meh.  When Paul Walker and Vin Diesel reunited for the fourth film, it took the franchise in a different direction and that was a needed change.  The movies are still about the cars, but now we’ve gone absolutely bonkers with crazy stunts and unforgettable action sequences.  Starting with the fourth film, the series started developing more of a story as the films went along.  Nothing ground-breaking, but it was enough to motivate the characters and action.

When it comes to action movies, Furious Seven is really off-the-charts crazy.  The action in the previous films was awesome, but it was borderline cartoonish.  In this latest installment, the action has a much grittier and grounded feel to it, thanks to the direction of James Wan.  There a number of scenes that really stand out.  There’s a sequence in which Toretto’s team basically drives their cars backwards out of an airplane, and parachuting onto a mountain highway, chasing down a hacker that’s been captured by mercenaries.  This scene is nuts.  It’s mostly done practically with real cars and stunts, and is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.  It even features a fight scene between Paul Walker’s character and Tony Jaa, who makes his American film debut.  But wait, there’s more:  There’s another wild sequence in which the characters have to retrieve a disc containing a program that will let you find anybody in the world at any time.  It’s a silly MacGuffin, but it works.  But if you thought that the mountain chase was crazy, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!  This scene takes the crew to Abu Dabhi, where they have to retrieve that disc, but the only way they can is to steal the car that it’s been put in.  Only, that car is in the penthouse of a Saudi royal.  Does it make sense?  No.  Is the whole thing awesome?  Yes.  The whole movie gets even crazier when it gets back to Los Angeles.

One of the things that’s really changed with the movies, is the addition of an actual villain and some pretty serious fisticuffs.  The first major hand-to-hand scene is when Jason Statham’s character takes on Dwayne Johnson.  Damn.  That’s a very hard-hitting scene with an explosive conclusion.  The next is the fight I described above with Tony Jaa.  While Tony Jaa’s previous film, The Protector 2 was a major let-down, he shines here, whenever he’s on screen.  He does his usual high-flying acrobatics and Muay Thai stuff.  He’s still got it.  The next one is when Michelle Rodriguez faces down the MMA champion, Ronda Rousey.  It’s pretty cool, but it’s not quite as spectacular as I was hoping.  Even Ludacris has a little bit of a fight scene.  All the action in Furious Seven is spectacular.

On the acting side of things, everybody does pretty good.  I was never the greatest fan of Paul Walker, but he always gives his stuff 110 percent.  He was pretty good.  Vin Diesel is Vin Diesel.  Other than Richard B. Riddick, Dominic Toretto is the most iconic character that he’s played.  It’s always fun to see Dwayne Johnson either beat people up, or blow shit up.  He’s got this charisma and sense of humor that really resonates with people.  There’s a reason he was one of the most electrifying personalities in the WWE.  The most surprising addition to the cast is Kurt Russell.  It’s Kurt Russell.  What can I say about the man who has done just about everything?  He’s clearly having a lot of fun here, and he even gets to shoot some people.  He’s definitely a good guy, but he’s a bit on the mysterious side.  He’s the reason why Toretto’s crew is after this God’s Eye program.  Jason Statham makes a great bad guy.  The opening sequence of the film shows how bad-ass he is.  There are some downsides to this movie.  The first one is that Dwayne Johnson is not in this as much as he was in the previous two.  Another is the fight scene between Letty and Kara was somewhat underwhelming, and the fact that Rousey is not an actress.  Tony Jaa also suffers from not having enough screen time.  Also, I noticed that while Dom is chasing down the program that he needs to find Shaw, Shaw actually ends up finding Dom periodically.  So…what’s the point of going after the God’s Eye program if their target is finding them?  Overall, though it’s a pretty solid action flick.

One of the main themes that runs throughout the entire series is how important family is.  We see the relationship between O’Connor and Toretto get stronger with each movie, to the point where they become brothers.  That’s one of the biggest themes about the movie:  Brotherhood.  Now, I have to mention this because it’s very important:  Paul Walker was tragically killed in a car accident while the movie was being made.  As a result, the scenes that he needed to shoot couldn’t be finished.  Being shocked and saddened by this tragic turn of events, production on Furious Seven was halted, while people dealt with this sudden loss.  The release date of the movie was supposed be April of 2014, but it got pushed back a year while they restructured the script and story so that Walker’s character was given a proper send-off.  To achieve this, James Wan brought in Paul Walker’s brothers to stand in for him in certain scenes, while they used CG to replace their faces with his, and it’s remarkable how well they did that.  You can tell that Paul’s presence was missed in certain scenes.  The final scene of the film, is a touching montage to Paul Walker and his presence within the franchise.  There’s no doubt in my mind that Paul Walker had grown as an actor, but he was also very grounded.  The people who knew him best, including Vin Diesel, said that he was one of the nicest people you could ever meet.  While unintentional, it does give the film an emotional anchor, and it’s very appropriate the way it ended.  It gave the rest of us one last chance to say goodbye not just to Brian O’Connor, but Paul Walker as well.  It is to him and his memory, that I dedicate this review.

Paul Walker

September 12, 1973-November 30, 2013

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