Review by Tony Freitas
Fast Five may be an unintentional lesson in script writing. I wanted to see it on opening day because the screenwriter was someone I used to know. Not like we were bowling buddies at Lucky Strike or taking extended fishing trips while our wives waited at home with boning knives to filet and prepare the fish upon our return, but I'd had several conversations with Chris Morgan about the craft of writing when he was working on a project for the production company I was employed by, and though he'd yet to hit it "big" at the time, he was on his way.
Apparently Chris Morgan is doing something the studios like. First with the script for Cellular, which led to The Fast And The Furious - Tokyo Drift, Wanted, Fast And Furious and now Fast Five, Chris has made quite the ascension in the summer movie franchise sweepstakes. With his easy-going, non-pretentious and affable demeanor I do a silent cheer every time I see his name attached to a project. Not that he needs my help. He has reached the top 1% in the screenwriting trade on his own and seems to have a beam on the pulse of audience desire.
Fast Five is a lesson in giving the audience what they want. Giving the audience the characters they want and the dialogue they want to hear coming from those character's mouths. Fast Five gives the audience the cars and adrenaline and gunplay and crashes that discerning viewers have come to expect and are paying mightily for at the box office.
While I was rolling my eyes the audience appeared to be eating up the clunky one-liners, laughing heartily and digging on the Vin Diesel vs. Dwayne Johnson mano-a-mano mildly homoerotic smack down wherein the two men are only distinguishable by Vin's matte finish muscles while The Rock goes with a glistening baby oil/sweat muscle finish that makes his beefy 30" arms look like a pair of underground-roasted Kalua pigs. Is that a banana leaf poking from under his arm pit?
Give the audience what they want: A crack team of experts of various nationalities, ethnicities and skills. Something to appeal to the foreign markets. Give 'em a hot skinny Italian chick who might fall down if she doesn't eat in the next month. Give 'em a yin and yang team of Portuguese explosives experts that interact like Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton. Finally, give 'em a finale set piece that actually thrills for the first five minutes and then like most Saturday Night Live sketches goes on for ten minutes too long.
Fast Five is exactly what you think it is. It won't disappoint, but it won't really surprise either. Well, except for that finale set piece that involves a safe. Think of Fast Five as a two-hour trailer for Furious 6 - Fast Cars in Outer Space coming summer 2013. Give 'em what that want Chris and more power to you.
I cannot help but notice how you "let" the writer get away with writing dribble.........If it made you roll your eyes.....It was BAD. Let him have it Tony!!!
ReplyDeleteThis was not a standard review. It was more about the film meeting an expectation of the audience. On that level it succeeds. It wasn't bad, it was formulaic. I bet you would actually like it. It was definitely better than Thor. That review comes next.
ReplyDeleteFuckin brilliant title, and I thought the piece worked, as Always. nice one!!
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