You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Fast 6
It’s an action movie fueled by nitros oxide and thong bikinis. It’s 8 cylinders, muscle cars and push up bras.
The plot: Our heroes must thwart a global terrorist. In return they get pardons allowing them to return to the USA.
While the plot is only plausible in a cinematic reality, the fact that this movie was made is only plausible in a Hollywood lacking guts.
Just the title makes me laugh. Fast and Furious SIX.
Really, SIX?
Six of anything is monotonous, including 2 sets of triplets. I don’t even know what that means, but I’m sure Hugh Hefner does.
I understand making Fast and Furious 1. It was a fun little romp, so why not make son-of-Fast and Furious.
In Hollywood; that’s as standard as jelly beans at Easter.
The movies obviously made money – even if the words Fast, Furious and Academy Award were never uttered in the same sentence.
Because the 1st two movies made money, someone in Hollywood, the town of big dreams and penis compensation issues, decides to bank rolls F & F 3.
Honestly, I can’t remember what FF3 was about. I’m sure there was a thong and a car race and someone got shot. But as far as memorable moments? I am at a loss.
Hollywood usually quits after 3 movies of the same title. It’s just a tired concept that the audience wants no more of. 3 movies with the same theme is as tired as a fat lady on Ambien.
But when it comes it to this concept, the typical life expectancy is extended 3 more times. Unbelievable!
All I can summize is that new scripts flow into the studios as they always have. But at some point, studio readers flush creativity down the tubes. Somewhere someone green lights – yes you guessed it – Fast and Furious four. This too is a forgettable story, but like the golden goose, it does its job and makes money. And because it is profitable, it spawns Fast and Furious five.
F&F 5 does well. The franchise is like a virus that mutates and slowly infects everyone on the globe. Before you know it, the disease has replicated itself and creativity itself is dead, but F&F 6 is greenlighted.
AAARRRGGGHHH!
The very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting a different result.
But making money in Hollywood is the goal and F & F is a tried and true formula. Girls and thongs and nitros burning hot rods. Throw in some fisticuffs, some tough talk, bulging biceps and a memorable bad guy and…
vioala!
Fast & Furious the franchise births another celluloid block buster.
Batman has attempted to inundate us with non stop versions of the same story. Iron Man and its justice leeg losers is doing the same. Star Wars may have started the craze with it’s trilogy of greatness, then 3 prequels which were boring like German Opera.
Fast and Furious 6: It’s absurd if you really think about it.
As a writer this is my major complaint with Hollywood. Producers with power consistently opt for safe and conventional projects, forgoing something new and unique.
A book, a comic strip, a previous movie, a Hallmark Greeting Card. If people were willing to pay for it once, they might pay for it again. This is the paradigm that big studios will follow.
There are great ideas out there. There are thousands of fresh, unique screenplays floating around Tinsel Town. Many are purchased, locked up in a safe. Many great stories will never be produced because they represent risk. Businessman hate risks.
And this is the cinematic conundrum. Create something unique in a world governed by box office receipts? Ultimately the known commodity will take precedence over a project with promise. Dollars and sense win while inspiration and creativity are subordinated.
More explosions, more CGI, more T & A. More exotic locations more bankable stars, the same old bankable stars. This is what we end up getting as consumers.
In essence, why produce something new and untested when you can roll out Iron Man 3, or Men in Black “before they were men or black. And now Fast and Furious 6.
So I do what millions of Americans do; I go to Fast 6. I expect to see the usual thongs and hot rods and tough talking bicep flexing I have seen before.
And I do…
But I am also surprised. The story works, in a “suspend belief kind of way”.
The plot points are formulaic, coming at 28 and 91 minutes. They seem pronounced and do set the story in motion in a traditional three act way.
The characters are interesting. They have motivation and a clear voice that seems authentic. There are love stories developed, and questions the movie asks are eventually answered. The story line is complicated, yet believable in a “just go with it” kind of way.
With so many characters, at least 10, it’s hard to establish a lot of character arc, but I think it is accomplished on several levels.
The Dom / Letty relationship is resolved. Brian O’Conner confronts his role in Letty’s perceived death, which as it turns out is really amnesia. (Damn sounds like a soap opera huh?) And Han Seoul-Oh (yes this is really his name) and Giselle develop a love story that is plausible. They actually have coffee between massacres.
Somehow in 2 hours, between all the street racing, shooting, punching, grinding, gearing, and explosions, the story comes together cohesively.
There are some unexpected twists when a good guy is really a bad guy, and there is a cliff hanger at the end that sadly and predictably sets up Fast and Furious 7.
GOD FORBID!
But it is Hollywood and making money means making more tired movies.
Fast and Furious 7. I can’t tell you what it will be about, but I am certain there will be cars, girls, thongs and bullets. On that you can be sure.
Life’s Crazy™