Fast Five (2011) - The Celebration of Dads
This is the movie that changed everything. Arguably the high watermark for the series (I still think I like the next one best, but we’ll see as I keep going), this is when the series becomes less grounded in something like reality and gives into imagination. The entire climax, with the safe as wrecking ball, was ripped off in a later Pirates of the Carribean sequel for goodness sakes! After Fast & Furious set the series back on the right track, director Justin Lin and screenwriter Chris Morgan did some fine tuning that takes things in a slightly different direction.
And I don’t just mean more guns shooting, more cars (and toilets) exploding, and more Vin Diesel scenery chewing.
First, the street racing aspect is gone. Dom and Brian go to a race to win a faster car and talk about how it’s good to be home. Then, in a clear signal from director to audience, the next thing we see is them arriving back at the garage victorious. We don’t get to see the race. We don’t need to see the race. Because that’s not what this about anymore. The one street race we do get is between the main characters, and the winner is left ambiguous.
Second, and more significant (to the themes of this essay series), is that the focus is no longer on an individual. It’s here that the soap opera elements start to slip in (“What about Letty, Dom?”). Fast Five is about the formation of the Family, and even though we don’t get the cookout and saying grace ritual, that moment remains in spirit. Yes, this is a genre jump, from cops, robbers, and street-racers, to heist film. Yes, we get the cliched forming the team montage. But the team becomes family when Brian and Mia share that they’re having a baby.
It’s worth appreciating how smoothly the same characters shift gears from one genre to the next.
Brian’s character is given a little backstory here, admitting that his father was hardly present. It doesn’t just give him motivation in this story, but even explains his actions in the earlier films. In the same conversation, Dom talks about how his dad brought the neighborhood together and cared for his family. Now we understand why Brian is on a search to belong, and why Dom instinctively draws people into his inner circle. Father/Son dynamics would become a dominant theme in other franchises (eg: Star Wars, MCU and DCEU), almost to a fault. But here it’s interesting that both men were strongly influenced by their dads is acknowledged without becoming a focal point.
Dads are important. They make or break families, and shape their son’s lives. Those are facts, touched on here just enough, not belabored, and used to develop the characters and story.
In a movie where The Rock’s character is the very definition of ham-fisted (“Aright listen up! The guys we're after are professional runners. They like speed and are guaranteed to go down the hardest possible way so make sure you've got your thunderwear on. We find 'em we take 'em as a team and we bring 'em back. And above all else we don't ever, ever let them get into cars.”) the most important things are allowed to be subtle.
The giant, bald men with the corny dialog are just distractions.
Whether or not Brian is still the audience avatar is up for debate. But it’s still his becoming a father that defines the team’s motivation. Stealing the drug lord’s money is their outward goal, because the drug lord tricked them, is evil, and no one will feel bad if he loses his money or is killed (spoiler: or both). The inner motivation for their actions is to set up a new home, removed from the dangers of the criminal world, where they can grow their family.
In the end, it all comes back to the desire for home, family, and a place to belong. The new dynamic, to be a good father and provider, is the natural progression. And a surprisingly old fashioned one. Unlike the other series mentioned earlier, in this world fathers are still admirable and held to a high standard. There's none of this, "Of course they failed their sons" attitude that permeates the cornerstone Disney franchises.
The celebration of dads here may be the biggest surprise of all.