Film Review: Fast & Furious 7

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Fast & Furious 7. Rated M (action violence). 137 minutes. Directed by James Wan. Screenplay by Chris Morgan.

Verdict: Paul Walker’s final film is a fine tribute.

During a filming break for Thanksgiving in 2013, Fast & Furious 7 star Paul Walker and his friend Roger Rodas were killed in a car accident. The coroner reported that their 2005 Porsche Carrera GT was travelling at speeds of up to 160km per hour.

Even though Fast & Furious 7 was eventually completed using stand-ins (including Walker’s two brothers) for Walker’s popular character Brian O’Connor, it is the circumstances of the star’s untimely death that haunt this movie more than anything that Morgan’s screenplay might have dreamed up.

But dream big Morgan certainly has, and Malaysian-born Australian director Wan (Saw, TheConjuring), is more than equal to the task of bringing the explosive, fast-paced story to the big screen. What is impressive about Wan’s departure from the horror genre (in which he has worked exclusively until now), is how inventive some of the sequences are – particularly the sensational car chases that take place on every available surface of a mountain range and the gob-smacking sequences that star Abu Dhabi’s trio of monumental glass skyscrapers.

Picking up where Fast & Furious 6 left us, regulars Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris and Dwayne Johnson return in now reliably robust form to defeat villain Deckard Shaw’s (Jason Statham) quest to avenge the death of his brother Owen, while also trying to get his hands on state-of-the-art surveillance software.

At just short of two and a half hours long, Fast & Furious 7 comes perilously close to outstaying its welcome, but with its exceptional big action set pieces and its generous number of laughs, it undeniably rewards our attention. And by the time the filmmakers say goodbye to Walker at the end, it feels like a perfectly fitting tribute to the Fast & Furious films’ star who, tragically, died too young.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.