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| Edited By: Bryan Durham |Source: DNA |Updated: Apr 14, 2017, 05:55 PM IST
Film: The Fate of the Furious
Director: F Gary Gray
Cast: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Charlize Theron, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Kurt Russell, Scott Eastwood
Long story short. Dom and Letty (Diesel and Rodriguez) are on their honeymoon in Cuba. One day, on his way back to his apartment, he runs into a woman who has trouble starting her car. Ever the gentleman, he offers to help. She reveals her hand -- as the cyberterrorist Cipher (Theron) -- she knows everything about him (all of us being connected through technology and all). She shows him what is presumably a video which shocks him into silence.
A subsequent mission to steal an EMP device from Berlin goes sideways when Dom betrays his team and his handler Luke Hobbs (Johnson), landing the latter in a maximum security prison opposite Deckard Shaw (Statham), the one guy who once landed him in a hospital. A short prison riot later, they’re out and about and on the same team, because… well, it’s a movie, after all.
Getting Dom back becomes a personal mission. After all, one can’t leave questions unanswered and cars unwrecked, no?
There’s a reason this franchise exists and has eight installments, and why Rohit Shetty too believes that car-wrecking sells tickets. That apart, this is baldie heaven for those who dig eggheads. All three lead actors are action superstars in their own right.
Charlize Theron has always been a geek favourite. Seeing her have at Dom without a single weapon and spout psychobabble is well worth the price of admission. That is unless you came in for the first two reasons mentioned in this section. And did I mention Helen Mirren’s in this one? Well, she is!
F8 has its moments - the car race in Cuba, the zombi-car sequence, Deckard trading punches while saving a baby on a plane, the submarine chase sequence -- all crazier than the last. But…
There’s little to hold your interest in between. You know the reason for Dom’s ‘betrayal’ fairly soon. You don’t know why he shares a kiss with Cipher. You wonder how easy it is to bury a hatchet when fighting a common enemy. And how long you can hold a grudge. Building up a sequel is fairly easy. As is introducing an antagonist that ties most of the franchise together. But was it really so difficult to hang on to that villain? And one has to ask, has F8 ditched its climax template for spectacle of the Mad Max: Fury Road kind? And please… retire Tyrese and Ludacris. That sh*t’s getting old, Mr Gray.
