Review: F9
Spoilers ahead for F9.
In F9 there’s nowhere for the Fast & Furious saga to go but up.
Director Justin Lin is back. Having helmed Tokyo Drift through Fast & Furious 6, Lin took the franchise to new places, going from street racing in Tokyo to international espionage action. Along with Lin’s return, nearly all the series’ supporting players are back with the biggest exception being Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson—considering the real-life feuds on set it’s no surprise his Hobbs character is now delegated to his own spin-off series. But it’s Han’s (Sung Kang) return that’s most important to Fast fans—killed at the end of Fast 6, Lin makes a grand statement with Han’s resurrection. F9 is a reassurance that the saga is back in familiar hands—there’s no way Lin would make a Fast film without Han, and we wouldn’t want it any other way. Considering the stumble of the last film, The Fate of the Furious, F9 takes both familiar roads and carves out new ones, continuing the franchise’s traditions of reinvention, absurdity, and heart, firmly placing the saga back on track.
The film begins in flashbacks set in 1989 (with an old school Universal Studios logo), showing us a pivotal event in the life of Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). If you know your Fast & Furious lore you’ll remember the story of Dom’s father dying in a race, as foretold by Dom himself in the first film. Young Dom (thankfully not a CGI de-aged Vin Diesel, instead a younger actor, Vinnie Bennett) beats another driver nearly to death for causing the wreck and gets sent to prison for two years. Oh, and it’s also revealed Dom has a brother that nobody bothered to mention until now, Jakob (the younger version played in flashbacks by Finn Cole). Turns out Jakob played a role in their father’s death, too (twist!).
F9 builds on the canon from the past, which is one of the series’ strengths, making previous entries more essential with each new film. At this point, why not (re)write an origin story for Dom and his brother based on a few lines of dialogue from a film made 20 years ago? Rewatches of Tokyo Drift hold more weight now for that same reason—Han’s development as a character in subsequent films adds more emotional resonance to his death on screen. And these flashbacks with Dom and his brother aren’t as intrusive as other franchise prequels or spin-offs either. It all ties back into the main core of the series. It’s always been about family, but this time it’s more literal and, of course, more complicated. After his two-year stint in prison, Dom turns his back on Jakob and Jakob leaves town after losing a street race (remember those?) to his brother, never to be seen again… until he pops up in the film’s opening action sequence, grown-up (played by John Cena) and in the espionage business in opposition to Dom’s team of heroes. Cena is a solid addition to the growing cast of the Fast series and a worthy adversary to Dom. They spend their screen time together mostly scowling, but in the tradition of Fast villains Cena is up there on the menacing front with a Jason Statham and Charlize Theron (who also pops back up here as bad guy Cipher, pulling the strings in the background, now serving as a Blofeld-type nemesis).
Dom’s story arc, partly, is him dealing with Jakob’s return and, you guessed it, their eventual reconciliation. He’s also wrestling with being a father to his own son, Brian—named after Paul Walker’s character, a tribute to the late actor. Dom wants one foot in the playpen and the other on the accelerator of his Charger. But how does a white tee-wearing superhero balance these two worlds? It’s in this collision of sweaty masculinity and unabashed sentimentality where Fast elevates itself into something special. While drowning and near dead (I mean, not really, he’s immortal) Dom has a dream sequence where he Quantum Leaps into his younger self and sees the events of that fateful crash play out again. He sees the truth and realizes Jakob wasn’t at fault. He also visualizes his own son and how important it is to have, you guessed it, a family. At this point the Fast films are in full soap opera mode, and Diesel, Lin, and the screenwriters really dive head first into family to a biblical degree. If you can’t accept the schmaltz at this point, one way or another, F9 won’t win you over. It never reaches Furious 7 heights in terms of gut punch—try to think of Brian riding into the sunset without tearing up—but it manages to pull those heart strings if you let it.
Of course there’s action. The plot itself is this side of convoluted as Dom’s team is roped into saving the world again, this time by stopping Jakob and his buyer from assembling a device that’s capable of controlling every computer on the planet. Oh, and one of the pieces of that MacGuffin happens to be a person, Elle (Anna Sawai), who Han has sworn to protect, so much so he faked his own death just to keep under the radar. It’s another retcon or, better yet, expansion of the Fast lore. Our favorite dark ops government man from the last two films, Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell), pulls off a magic trick, faking Han’s death in Tokyo. Again, the series asks a lot of its audience in terms of believability, but if you bought into the fact that cars can indeed fly (see Furious 7) then this shouldn’t be too much of a leap. The biggest problem with Han’s return is that the film spends way too little time with him. But with some many characters already involved in the main saga and the promise of at least two more Fast films and other potential spin-offs, who’s to say we might not get a Han solo film down the line.
The #JusticeForHan campaign surely had a lot to do with Sung Kang coming back into the fold. The fact that Han’s killer Shaw (Statham) got propped up like a hero in The Fate of the Furious and got his own spin-off felt like a slap to the face to Han loyalists. Now with Lin back on board, there was no way Han’s death would be in vain, and it does feel right to have Sung Kang back as Han in a Justin Lin film. Not only that, other Tokyo Drift characters return and it feels like a long time coming to see Sean (Lucas Black), Twinkie (Bow Wow) and Earl Hu (Jason Tobin) at Dom’s cookout.
F9 comes in at two hours and 25 minutes yet it doesn’t feel bloated. The spotlight shines on each character, and rightfully so too. The last few films have been unkind to its female characters and it’s a welcome relief to see heroes Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and Mia (Jordana Brewster) do something other than die (RIP Gisele and Elena). The fact that we see the two sister-in-laws Letty and Mia sit and talk feels remarkable because we’re not accustomed to it. And Mia is given more action here than before, relegated to off-screen mother in the last film, she now has familial stakes at play with the return of her brother Jakob. Roman (Tyrese Gibson) even has a mini story arc as he contemplates how he and the rest of Dom’s team have been able to cheat death all this time—he doesn’t sustain a single bullet wound or scratch after the film’s first gun fight. It starts as a self-referential gag before becoming a safety net for the series’ biggest leap yet: In an attempt to stop the bad guys’ plan, Roman and Tej (Chris “Ludacris'' Bridges) go to space (outer space!) in a car with a rocket strapped to the roof in order to hack into a satellite. Perhaps they are immortals, Roman ponders, so why not push things even further, beyond tanks, drones, and submarines. It’s not like they needed to reassure us the Fast films are beyond ridiculous, but it’s nice to know everyone is in on just how we got from illegal street races to outer space. F9 accomplishes the feat of juggling so much, on the ground and in the air, and topping what came before, all without becoming overbearing and exhausting.
Lin and company know how to take the familiar and make it new again. Take for example Dom and Jakob’s reconciliation. After Dom’s team successfully defeats the bad guys and Jakob turns good guy at long last, there’s one last conversation between them on an abandoned road. In a direct nod to the first film, Dom gives his brother the keys to his car so that Jakob can stay ahead of the law that’s now after him, like how Brian gave his keys to Dom 20 years ago in their own Point Break moment. What Diesel lacks in skillful acting he makes up for in sincerity; he is the heart of the series. His low growl mumbled line delivery doesn’t feel strained with artifice—it partially has to do with his real life persona, the heartfelt side of Dom you see on screen isn’t too far off from the Vin Diesel we see off screen. Here, it’s Dom/Vin once again paying tribute to Brian/Paul in a grand gesture. It’s something this series understands; it creates its legends from simple notions. Now the handing over of keys becomes iconic.
It’s a tradition now for each Fast film to end with a cookout, Dom’s family sitting around the table, one member saying grace as we pan over to see old and new faces. The beauty here is that it doesn’t quite get old just yet, even though we’ve seen this time and time again. They all stop when they notice an empty seat, then Mia says Brian is on his way. There were rumors while F9 was shooting that Walker’s Brian would be back in some form for F9—Walker’s performance in Furious 7 was finished with his real life brothers as stand-ins with CGI courtesy of Weta Digital. But just as we see Brian’s car pull into the driveway, the film cuts to black and the credits roll. Is this a tease to what’s to come? Could they possibly “recast” Brian to bring him back into the Fast films? More likely than not, this is as close as we’ll get to his return. Ever on the outside of the frame, always a presence but never seen. Anything more than that would be a mistake, but this series has surpassed itself time and time again so I won’t rule anything out.
Nine movies into the main saga and it’s still a shock these movies work so well. The action is intense, the characters feel as fleshed out as ever, the fun is infectious, and the emotional curveballs hit. And yet, for as many cliffhangers and teases to future films, there’s no sense of feeling cheated when you leave the theater. There was a worry, with the loss of Paul Walker, the rifts on set, the loss of creative forces behind the scenes, and the general franchise fatigue that the 10th film, 20 years on, wouldn’t have the same spark as past entries, but of course this wouldn’t be the first time the Fast & Furious surprised me—F9 is a wonder.
