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Fast Five

Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, and Dwayne Johnson
Directed by: Justin Lin
Written by: Chris Morgan and Gary Scott Thompson

     Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and the crew are back for yet another action packed heist.  This time, they're in Rio de Janeiro and this is their last job.  But this time, they're doing it to buy their freedom.  So what's the payout?  $100 million from this guy, Reyes, the largest drug trafficker in Brazil.  As they assemble the crew into position, they are tracked down by the FBI.  The team is led by Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), one of the toughest guys in the FBI.  He never misses his target.  All Hobbs wants is for Reyes to be dead.
     As the fifth installment in The Fast and the Furious series, there isn't a whole lot of new stuff that Fast Five offers.  It's the same story but in a different place.  They're trying to steal their money while federal agents are trying to capture them and put them behind bars.  The difference is that the opening scene is probably the most exciting, action packed, and explosive job of all.  It seems that the story is more about the criminal activity going on than about street racing like in the earlier movies.
     The acting is also quite good.  Vin Diesel never fails to impress me as the strong guy whom you'd never want to mess with.  This is probably Paul Walker's best performance of all the Fast and the Furious films.  It's awesome that they brought in Dwayne Johnson for the role of a badass federal agent.  He's the perfect field officer because of his size.  He makes everyone around him look rather small, except Vin Diesel.  The problem with his character is that he is always shown sweating, even when he shouldn't be sweating.  It's a little weird if you ask me.
     Overall, I think this is the best Fast and the Furious movie yet.  It's the most action packed, the most interesting, and the most entertaining, and has the best music in the series.  What's cool about Fast Five is that most of the crew is actually present and everyone has relatively important jobs.  We aren't meeting many new characters, especially not as many as in the four films past.  I was expecting it to be the most awesome conclusion to a not especially great series, but again, there will be a sequel in a few years.  There will be a Fast Six.  You'll have to stay through the credits to understand.  If you're a fan of heist films, and big, noisy, and cool looking cars, Fast Five is the film for you.  However, I do recommend that you watch the previous four movies before seeing Fast Five.  It doesn't do a great job of filling in the gaps.
Fast Five comes in with an A-.

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