Outlandish and lacklustre

Vin Diesel’s Domenic Toretto has done it all, he dragged a three tonne-safe across the streets of Rio de Janeiro, prevented a plane from taking off, escaped from a burning plane via a car, stopped a rampaging tank, made a halo jump with car and more. With the list of dare-devil stunts with car getting exhausted, the makers of the ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise decided that he should race a missile in the next film of the serious. Exactly, Vin Diesel not only races the missile but outfoxes it.

Did it sound outlandish? That was just a part of the movie, which has even more outlandish script. In a nutshell, with his family in peril, Vin Diesel has to turn against his family and help a cyber-terrorist to secure nuclear launch codes and while the terrorist is under the impression protagonist was on her side, he has to outwit her to save his family and make amends with his kin on whom he turned against.

Sounds contrived and cluttered right; that is precisely the story of ‘Fast and Furious 8’. The movies in the franchise wee not known for its great storylines but this movie has a solid premise of ‘Dom turning against his family’. With an ensemble cast, if developed and dealt better, the movie would have been a gripping drama but that was not the case.

The solid premise fizzles out as the writer and director focus more on set pieces and action sequences rather than the story arc. Having said that the action pieces in the movie are underwhelming they failed to match the expectations of film-goers and critics as well. When the previous film in the series has a jaw dropping stunt like, car jumping from roof of a sky scraper to another and cars making a parachute jump from plane, the expectations on the next film will be sky high.

However, in film the best stunt doesn’t involve cars and chases and they lasts less than for a minute. Towards the half-an-hour mark, the antagonist hacks cars and turns them against Russian defence minister, carrying nuclear launch codes. It would have been a memorable action sequence but the directors F Gary Gray’s insistence on collisions rather than chase spoiled it. At one point of time in the nearly 10 minute sequence, it feels like ‘come on put an end to it, how many more car-on-car collisions do we have to watch’.

The 8th instalment in the series was written by Chris Morgan (who wrote previous five instalments). He has milked the series to the last drop and was seemingly out of ideas to pen a coherent script. Though it was marketed that the film takes a turn from heist films to spy capers, it wasn’t the case.

However, the best parts in the movie are cameos by Helen Mirren and Jason Statham. Statham, who was the main antagonist in the previous instalment plays an extended cameo of acid-tongue anti-hero and moreover, the scene where he punches his way through hordes of goons on a plane is the best action sequence and it reminds the fans of the Statham’s flicks like ‘Crank’ and others.

Charlize Theron was an intriguing choice as a cyber-terrorist and despite her best efforts; she looks misplaced in the movie. We seriously hope that this movie marks the end of the franchise, if that was not the case and then it remains to be seen how long the studio tries to milk a cow which has dried up.

Film Name : Fast & Furious 8

Cast : Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Charlize Theron and others
Direction : F Gary Gray
Genre : Action-Thriller
Likes : Jason Statham and Helen Mirren
Dislikes : Everything else

By Aditya Parankusam