Driven to an air-conditioned theater by a weekend heat wave, I surprised myself by seeing Fast & Furious 6 (just “Furious 6” in the title sequence). Now you do not go to a franchise action thriller for strong characters, profound themes or plausible stories; instead you’re looking for fights and chases (and, in my case, air conditioning). Fortunately, Fast & Furious 6 delivers the cool chase scenes, doesn’t take itself too seriously and offers a couple of strong female performances to boot.
In a smoldering performance, Michelle Rodriguez steals the movie whenever she’s on screen. I was also delighted to see Gina Carano, whom I liked so much last year in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire. Carano is a mixed martial arts star in real life, so she adds authenticity to an action picture.
Then there’s the dialogue and the plot. One team member says, as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson approaches unseen from behind, “Why do I smell baby oil?”. That is the ONLY line in Fast & Furious 6 that I hadn’t heard in a movie before. The movie’s climactic set piece is over 20 minutes of frantic action as an airplane is trying to take off, and I calculated that the runway needed to be at least 68 miles long. But, because Furious 6 shows the good sense not to linger on anything for longer than a second or two, we don’t mind.
Some female viewers will gag at a male fantasy aspect of Fast & Furious 6. It’s not a sexual, but a gender behavioral fantasy – the women characters always release the men from any emotional drama. When a guy opts to leave his wife and their baby for a totally unnecessary suicide mission, she accedes, affirming that he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do. When the hero finds and rescues his old girlfriend, his current girlfriend is a good sport and steps aside with no hard feelings. It’s a Low Maintenance and No Drama world for the guys. This is the most implausible part of Fast & Furious 6.
Rodriguez: outstanding. Chases and Carano: good. Everything else: silly but harmless.