Fast Five (2011)

Written by CinemaSerf on May 15, 2023

Picking up hot on the heels of the last film, the newly escaped "Dom" (Vin Diesel), his ex-FBI pal "O'Conner" (Paul Walker) and "Mia" (Jordan Brewster) have to keep skipping one step ahead of the pursuing law led by "Hobbs" (Dwayne Johnson) and, whilst cornered in Rio, they must assemble everyone with driving skills so as to thwart the ambitions of drug lord "Reyes" (Joaquim de Almeida) whom they have seriously hacked off. This effort sacrifices a little of the pace and speed of the other films and tries to focus on a slightly stronger story with some better characterisations - that does mean that it can be a bit on the slow side at times and maybe we get just one thoughtful pose from Diesel too many, but as we head towards a fairly predictable denouement this easily (for my money, anyway) tops the list of F&F films before clearly teeing us up for number 6. I think it's closer in quality and standard to the first film - and still has plenty of burnt rubber and lively stunts to keep it watchable.