Fast and Furious 7

Roughly ten minutes into Fast and Furious 7 The Rock and Jason Statham are having a good old-fashioned rumble.  The Rock grabs the Stath and for all intents and purposes Rock Bottoms him through a glass table.  Following this, The Rock and one of friends are blown out of a window (which is several stories up) and land on top of a car, causing it to crumple in on itself.  No one dies in this exchange and it’s the moment I got on board with Fast and Furious 7.

First things first, coming into this film I hadn’t seen a Fast and Furious movie since the first one, something I am probably going to change in the coming weeks.  However, a love of the Stath and a penchant for the ridiculous, convinced me to go along and see this film.  It meant there were probably certain plot points that left me behind.  Character beats that I picked up on, but don’t know the history of.  With that in mind, I can tell you that you probably don’t need to worry about the plot.  In a nut shell, the Stath is annoyed about what the Fast and Furious team did to his brother and is out to murder them.  Kurt Reynolds then turns up and hires the team to get back a piece of surveillance equipment for his shady government agency, which he will then let them use in order to hunt the Stath.

There are so many holes in that plot that I probably don’t have to time to write them all down.  For one thing, as the gang spend their time trying to get the piece of equipment they need to find Mr. Statham, he keeps turning up and trying to kill them, obviously possessing some sort of homing beam himself.  This makes the whole endeavour feel a little bit pointless.

However, simple things like time and distance and even plot, don’t actually matter in this film.  To care about them is to take it ten times more seriously than it deserves to be taken.  And I don’t care at all, because none of that stops it being fantastically good fun.  There are so many moments in this film that made me want to physically leap out of my chair and punch the air, that I quickly lost count.  Whether it is them leaping between sky scrapers in a car, falling out of planes in a car or just The Rock being The Rock (not even in a car), this film is cooler than the other side of the pillow.  It’s never smart, but my god it’s exciting.

Of course, there are problems and not all of them plot related.  It has an unhealthy obsession with camera shots focusing in on young ladies backsides and some of the dialogue is clunky at best.  However, it feels like a waste of time to get annoyed.  James Wan has embraced the silliness of this series and when it is that silly, getting offended feels like a waste of breath.

What’s most impressive about it all, is despite how stupid it is, at the very centre of the film there is some genuine heart.  I’m sure most people are aware of the sad accident that took place during filming and Paul Walker’s early death hangs over this film.  However, it takes this tragic accident and makes something just a little bit beautiful out of it.  All through the film they emphasise the importance of family, with Vin Diesel sitting in the middle of this gang of misfits like some big, proud and bald papa bear, and when they eventually pay their tribute to Walker and say goodbye to his character, it is handled with class.  I can only imagine it’s the first time in history that a Fast and Furious film has been met with tears, at least ones that weren’t caused by laughter.

Fast and Furious 7 is big, dumb and always good fun.  You don’t need to think to see this movie and from my experience, you don’t even have to be a fan of the series.  It has it’s faults and if you can only stomach serious cinema stay far, far away, but if you are willing to shut off your brain for an evening and let this rollercoaster drag you along, then you will be more than entertained.