Fast & Furious Five

Fasten your seatbelts, please! Vin Diesel and Paul Walker have gotten behind the wheel once again and are really stepping it up in Fast & Furious Five. After the duo from Part 1 reunited for the fourth installment after two rather weak sequels, and it was well received by audiences, a fifth installment was quickly a done deal. And anyone now expecting a tired rehash of the previous films is in for a pleasant surprise.

After saving Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) from spending years in prison in a spectacular move, Brian (Paul Walker), Mia (Jordana Brewster) and Dominic are henceforth on the run. One last watertight coup is supposed to get the three of them enough money to disappear for good. But the robbery of a car transport fails and Brian and Toretto are framed for the murder of the agents guarding the cars. As they manage to escape with one of the cars, not only the tough FBI agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), but also Rio's most powerful gangster boss Hays (Joaquim de Almeida) is now on their heels. Because he wants to get back something hidden in the car at any cost. For Dominic it's clear: if they want to go underground this time, it's for good. And for that they need new identities and lots of money. They could relieve Hays of his drug money, but for that they need the help of real professionals. Luckily, they can rely on old friends for that...

Sure, deep dialogue and fleshed-out characters shouldn't be expected in the fifth Fast & Furious film. As with the last few films, more attention is paid to fast cars and curvy ladies than intellectual depth. But that's not a big deal in an action spectacle like this. Alone the clash of the extreme coolness of main actor Vin Diesel and the concentrated testosterone of newcomer Dwayne The Rock Johnson has such a high entertainment value that some stupid dialogue is gladly overlooked.

Anyway, the entertainment value in this fifth part can increase again strongly. That's because director Justin Lin strays a bit from the tried-and-true formula, letting the illegal car races fade almost completely into the background and turning the whole thing into a fun, swashbuckling version of Steven Soderbergh's Oceans movies. Great action sequences set against the backdrop of Rio and a perfectly planned heist carried out by team assembled from all the previous installments make Fast & Furious Five a high-explosive action cracker with plenty of suspense, humor and lots of showmanship.

Fans of the series will be kept entertained throughout with references to the earlier films. Still, action fans new to the PS universe will have no trouble following the simple-minded plot structure. Because the makers know exactly what their target audience wants to see and they deliver it on the best level. Complicated twists are just as out of place as high-minded dialogues. Fast & Furious Five is a film for fans, old and new, an entertaining action film that shows that this series is far from running out of steam. Absolutely recommendable!

If you still want to know what story a probable sixth part could be based on, you should definitely stay seated during the credits. For there follows another brief scene in which not only does a fairly well-known actress make a guest appearance, but another character from the Fast & Furious universe is mentioned in a surprising way.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp