One can’t mess with family. Behind the street mayhem and unbelievable, almost implausible, car stunts, director James Wan (Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring) takes this one to the ground and portrays the fight for family in the midst of chaos. It is one that stretches beyond the screen and one that touched the life of the actors themselves. Vin Diesel’s Dominic Torreto made it very clear: “I don’t have friends. I got family.”
In 2001, the Fast and Furious movie franchise was distributed and released by Universal Pictures with all sorts of striking fast cars and street racing fanaticism. Later on, it went to portray more character diversity and action. And 14 years later, the seventh installment came out with a rather more complete package, showing off over-the-top action, humor, and dashes of drama that marks respect and serves as a memorial for the late Paul Walker. “This time, it ain’t just about being fast.”
Fast and Furious 7 takes place after the events of Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift. It kicks off with Deckard Shaw, an ex-special forces assassin and a rogue shadow who is also the older brother of Owen Shaw (last installment’s villain). Jason Statham (The Transporter, The Expendables) is spot-on in playing the role with his typecast kick-ass acting. He is, indeed, Owen Shaw’s “big, bad brother.” And as with the protagonists, Deckard Shaw is also fighting for family, as he hunts down Dominic Torreto and the gang for what they did to his little brother.
After the death of Han (Sung Kang) in Tokyo, the roughing up of Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) in his own turf, and the blatant bomb attack on the Torreto house, Dom sets out to track down and reverse the tables on this shadow. But in order for him to do so, Dom was tasked by a U.S. government operative “Mr. Nobody” (Kurt Russell) to obtain a godlike computer program “God’s Eye” created by a British hacker named Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and prevent it from falling into the hands of a mercenary known as Jakande (Djimon Honsou). Set across the Caucasus Mountains and Abu Dhabi, Dom and his crew must find this program and use it to shine a light upon the shadowy assassin that hunts them.
While some of the car stunts depicted may be characterized as hysterical, the movie itself isn’t. Normally, it’s the non-stop action that can overpower the senses in watching a Fast and Furious movie. The title of the film already says that. Sure, it was ridiculously gripping. But somehow, this seventh installment manages to keep the emotions high despite the guns, bombs, missiles, helicopters and fast cars. That scene when Brian was having an emotional phone conversation with his wife Mia (Jordana Brewster) about coming back to his family after they embark on a dangerous mission says it all. Undeniably, Paul Walker was a core member of the Fast and Furious family, both inside and outside the film, and having lost him is a blow dealt unto the cast and the film crew. And that inspiration was the whole movie. Whether there were CGI shots of Paul and the shots of his brothers as his body doubles didn’t matter. What mattered is that we get to see the movie fashioned in a heartfelt gratitude towards the actor.
All told, it was fantastic to watch, especially in line with the whole movie franchise. The “swoosh” and the “bang” won’t get old. Along with touching dramatic scenes and the spot-on song of Wiz Khalifa entitled “See You Again,” it was worth the wait. And for Paul Walker, the words of Vin Diesel at the end of the movie will reverberate: “No matter where you are, were you a quarter-mile away or halfway across the world, you’ll always be with me, and you’ll always be my brother.”
