Fast X trailer

I viewed Fast X on Tuesday—only because the seating for the movie that I was planning to see was less than ideal for me (even fully vaccinated and double-boosted, I want to maintain my distance for now). So I saw Fast X instead—it was only my second Fast & Furious movie, the first being the original, which I actually viewed in the theater not when it came out in 2001, but fifteen years later in 2016. I found that film "good," but this one "mediocre." That was as much as I could have hoped for—that it was watchable, not terrible—and at least it passed that bar. But at two hours and twenty-one minutes, it is way too long given the slight subject matter. (Consider that the original The Fast and the Furious sported a running length of one hour and forty-six minutes.) Fast X should have been half an hour shorter, and the bloated running time suggests that the budget encouraged needless indulgence.

Overall, the film represents typical formula—mild sentimentality, an over-the-top villain, a constant (and slightly amusing) parade of stars that includes Rita Moreno, Helen Mirren, Charlize Theron, and Brie Larson, a blaring soundtrack, and nearly nonstop edits and closeups. One wishes that there could have been more in the way of longer, sustained shots. For instance, during one car chase early in the movie, the audience is treated to a compelling, subjective (point of view) shot as the car (the Vin Diesel character's, I guess) approaches a cascade of converging cop cars. The shot and moment prove suspenseful, even thrilling, and I was intrigued to see how it would have played out from a sustained POV, to place the viewer in the character's position more fully. But alas, there is another quick cut, and we will never know. 

I am reminded of an anecdote from the shooting of Magnum Force, the first Dirty Harry sequel, which came out fifty years ago this December. The film's climax begins in a car where Clint Eastwood's notorious San Francisco homicide inspector, Harry Callahan, engages in what amounts to a philosophical debate with his bureaucratic nemesis- Lieutenant Briggs, played by the late Hal Holbrook. With just a soundman crouching in the backseat and no room for director Ted Post, Eastwood had to direct the scene, in addition to engaging with Holbrook in memorable dialogue, in addition to navigating actual freeway traffic. According to Holbrook, as quoted in Richard Schickel's Clint Eastwood: A Biography (1996), page 303, Eastwood would sometimes stop in the middle of his speech, distracted by the high-speed traffic and not liking how he was delivering his lines. But eventually, they got it down, and the rhetorical clash segues into a famous car chase up and down the hilly streets of San Francisco—and clearly, again, it is Eastwood driving the car, much as Steve McQueen had in Bullitt five years earlier. 

That was a different era. Now it is all about special effects, with realism a quaint nonconcern. That said, I actually enjoyed the climactic stunt in Fast X, where Diesel's Dominic Toretto and his young son (supposedly) drive Indeed, the concept is creative and makes one wonder whether such a stunt could actually be done.

But then one returns to reality.