Fast 9 Embraces The Franchise’s Parodoxical Existence With Absurdity And Heart
Remember when the idea of The Fast and The Furious franchise going into outer space was nothing more than a fun in-joke amongst fans? Me neither, because most fans always saw this as an earnest and attainable goal! It may very well be one of the reasons these films have managed to endure for two literal decades, as the franchise has since reached the point of becoming the live-action adaptations of the Saturday morning cartoon series that would have been made immediately after the first film. Despite its absurd evolution from low-stakes crime capers to comic book blockbuster-style action spectacles, The Fast and The Furious’ biggest strength has always been the theme of family. It has been the core of this franchise that even the most physics-defying action scenes could not overshadow.
With Fast 9, family has never been more important to Dominic Toretto as a character. Living off the grid with his wife Letty and his son Brian, Dom is thinking about his life as a father and husband, and the fear of this life being threatened. Enter Jakob; a highly trained spy and assassin with almost inexhaustible resources, who has stolen a potentially world-ending MacGuffin from Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody, and just so happens to be Dom’s estranged brother.
The Fast and The Furious franchise had already reached soap opera stupidity with the introduction of Dom’s illegitimate son, so giving him a long lost brother honestly feels tame by comparison. Through a series of flashbacks in Fast 9, with Vinnie Bennet and Finn Cole playing Dom and Jakob respectively, we see how their relationship went from one of love and loyalty to blind hatred. We also see the fateful race Dom spoke of in the original Fast and Furious film, which took the life of his father, played here by JD Pardo. By any conceivable metric, this should not work, but I still found myself absolutely captivated, especially thanks to the strong performances of the actors playing the younger versions of Dom and Jakob.
As present day Jakob, John Cena is delightfully smarmy, bringing WWE theatrics to the character’s rivalry with Dom in the best possible way. He perfectly captures the persona of a mustache-twirling villain convincingly, without playing it for laughs. When he’s first spotted by Dom and Letty during a chase through a jungle, you feel the tension of this moment, and it’s a credit to Cena and director Justin Lin for crafting this scene so beautifully. Essentially, Jakob is to Dom what Sam Mendes wanted Christophe Waltz’s Blofeld to be to James Bond in Spectre, but dammit if it doesn’t work infinitely better in this film.
Even though she has little to do until the third act, Charlize Theron is as commanding as ever in her return to the role of Cypher. She’s bitterly cold and ominous in her delivery, and she easily captures the title for the best line in the film, verbally taking down Jakob’s financier by comparing him to a particular Star Wars character. I also hope that it’s not lost on fans of these films that the most prominent recurring villain against the most multicultural team of heroes in Hollywood is a blonde white woman. For all intents and purposes, Cypher is “Cyber-Karen”.
However, I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the return of Helen Mirren, who has a brief but memorable appearance in Fast 9, as she invites Dom to ride shotgun while she leads police on a high-speed chase through the streets of London. I don’t think I’m being controversial when I say that Mirren and Vin Diesel have an astoundingly high level of chemistry in this scene.
Sadly, one of my least favorite parts of Fast 9 may very well be the return of Sung Kang as Han. I’m still happy to see the character alive and well, but it is the textbook definition of a plot contrivance. Even by the standards and internal logic of this franchise, the explanation for his return in light of the fact that his initial death in Tokyo Drift was already retconned to introduce Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw, feels brazenly haphazard. It doesn’t help that Kang’s performance in the film conveys some degree of boredom throughout a number of scenes. Even the introduction of his young ward played by Anna Sawai does little to strengthen either of them as characters. However, there is a fair argument to be made that most fans, especially those who have been hashtagging #JusticeForHan, since Fate of the Furious, couldn’t care less about this rather clunky plot development.
In spite of this, Fast 9’s still manages to succeed overall by reshaping itself into the kind of self-aware farce that makes it even more enjoyable than I could have imagined. Multiple scenes in the film feature stalwart jokester Roman Pierce legitimately trying to make sense of his and the rest of the team’s ability to work their way out of multiple life-or-death situations, almost completely unscathed. Even at its most self-serious, Fast 9, more than any previous film, is strengthened by this acknowledgement. It leans heavily into this because after nine films, it knows it can afford to. Everyone involved knows that the audience for these films are in for a penny, in for a pound, and rather than simply rest on familiarity, it’s taking massive swings it has no business taking. Of course Lucas Black, Bow Wow, and Jason Tobin’s characters from Tokyo Drift are now testing rocket engines built onto hatchbacks in Germany! Of course Mia is fighting off assassins with Letty, having left husband Brian to take care of their kids and Dom’s son! What can the team retrofit onto their cars as both an offensive and defensive weapon during chase scenes? MAGNETS!!!! Will Dom Tarzan swing his car from one cliff to the next without injury in one scene, and have a legit Lion King moment with the spirit of his father in another? You bet your sweet ass!
After 20 years, The Fast and The Furious franchise knows what it is, and no matter how much that may seem to change, there are still core tenets to these films that have connected with a diverse audience. Though we may continue to criticize other films that stretch credibility, the Fast and the Furious films have managed to brush off their own criticisms thanks to the chemistry of its cast, director Justin Lin’s flair for action, and its legitimate attempts to one-up itself with every new entry. Even with some of the most absurd action set pieces the franchise has pulled off thus far, it’s amazing that Fast 9’s biggest gamble was the character drama of exploring Dom and Jakob’s past. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s a gamble that, for the most part, pays off.
(4 out of 5)
