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.

Film Review: Hercules

Hercules. Rated M (violence, blood and infrequent coarse language). 98 minutes. Directed by Brett Ratner. Screenplay by Ryan Condal and Evan Spiliotopoulos. Based on Radical Comics’ Hercules by Steve Moore.

Verdict: Radical Comics make a stupidly entertaining entry into big screen Comic Book universe.

There is more than one way to skin a lion, it would seem, as Radical Comics (after a piece of Marvel’s box office pie) make their high-impact entry into the world of big screen adaptations. And if this entertaining piece of big budget schlock is anything to go by, they are a welcome addition to the fold – if only for entirely different reasons. Hercules is a message- and moral-free zone, existing for one reason only, which is to entertain.

Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand) somehow manages channel the great Mel Brooks, Monty Python and his own peculiar taste for unhinged cinematic pandemonium into an irreverent sprint through the Hercules (Dwayne Johnson) fable. Johnson, who is re-writing the book of what you need to possess in order to have a lucrative acting career, is fantastic as Hercules. The camera cannot get enough of him, and he obliges with all kinds of face-pulling and posturing, while also handling the comedy and the high drama in thunderingly good form like the supremely entertaining showman he really is.

Veterans Ian McShane (as the weary ‘Seer’ Amphiaraus) and John Hurt (as the vengeful Lord Cotys) bring presence and entertainment value to the show in equal measure, with McShane working all the best laughs to his absolute advantage as he expects to die courtesy of a flaming arrow at any moment.

As our hero and his cohorts trample all over the place killing everyone and everything that gets in their way, it becomes impossible not to simply marvel at how wonderfully silly it all is. Silly, entertaining, and done and dusted in half the time. Marvellous.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Fast and Furious 6

Fast and Furious 6. Rated M (action violence and infrequent coarse language).130 minutes. Directed by Justin Lin. Screenplay by Chris Morgan.

Verdict: The Fast and Furious franchise reaches top gear.

When a film can’t even make up its mind about what it has to be called, you know the people responsible are at the very pinnacle of a certain kind of success. Fast 6, Furious 6 (as it appears on screen in the opening title credit), or Fast and Furious 6, this is the latest instalment in a ridiculously successful franchise that has defied the laws of cinema. Or re-written them completely. Whichever it is depends entirely on your own point of view.

Beginning with The Fast and the Furious (2000), this series of films about fast cars, gangs, covert undercover operations and an international array of locations usually reserved for movies about that certain secret agent 007, the (arguably) niche market to which these films speak has embraced them wholeheartedly. And it is not that difficult to understand why. While they might not be works of art, they are superbly produced action films about the true spirit of comeraderie, and this instalment will have you staring at the screen with a certain amount of jaw-dropping awe.

The Fast and Furious ‘family’ have split up around the globe to enjoy the spoils of their bank heist in Fast and Furious 5. But when Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) brings Toretto (Vin Diesel) photographic evidence that the love of his life Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is still alive and working for an opposing gang, Toretto reunites the team to take the weapon-stealing gang on and bring Letty back to the fold.

It’s impossible to fault the acting on show here because there isn’t any. As any Fast and Furious Fan knows, it’s all about the car-related stunts, and Morgan’s screenplay – a brilliantly engineered piece of ‘let’s get the talk out of the way so we can get back to the car chases’ – is embraced by the cast, who share his aspirations without question.

The irony is that they’re absolutely right to do so. The big action set pieces are simply gob-smacking, and Lin (Fast 3) and his Australian-born cinematographer Stephen Windon (Fast 3, 5 and 6), nail them with breath-taking precision. The final sequence, which takes place on the longest airport runway known to mankind, is an instant classic, and the post-credits scene sets up Fast and Furious 7 with this series’ signature confidence. Just remember, as the film-makers wisely mention in a closing title screen, don’t try any of this at home.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Snitch

Snitch. Rated M (drug use and violence). 112 minutes. Directed by Ric Roman Waugh. Screenplay by Justin Haythe and Ric Roman Waugh.

Verdict: A terrifically intense thriller about how far a father will go to save his son.

This tense and tight thriller about just how far a father will go to save the life of his imprisoned young son absolutely scorches across the screen – wasting no time whatsoever in taking us into the murky underworld of drug trafficking.

When construction company boss John Matthews’ (Dwayne Johnson) son Jason (Rafi Gavron) is imprisoned for trafficking drugs, John decides to help the law enforcement agencies – led by Susan Sarandon’s US Attorney Joanne Keeghan – snare bigger fish in return for having his son’s sentence reduced. With the help of one of his employees Daniel (Jon Bernthal), who has a conviction for trafficking narcotics, John risks everything he has and the lives of everyone he knows to right a terrible wrong.

With its heart on its sleeve and a truckload of moral dilemmas to resolve, Haythe and Waugh’s terrific and efficient screenplay plays with almost impossibly high stakes. Every character has something incredibly important to gain or lose, and the way in which Jason is in worse and worse shape when John regularly visits him in prison is an extremely powerful motivator.

Wrestler turned actor Johnson (aka The Rock) delivers a solid performance as the indefatigable John Matthews, but it is the supporting cast assembled around him that really delivers the goods. Bernthal (The Walking Dead), in particular, is outstanding as John’s co-conspirator and delivers one of the best and most interesting performances of the year so far. Gavron (The Cold Light of Day) is excellent as the young man struggling to hold it together in jail, and as we watch him slowly deteriorating as a result of relentless assaults, it is not difficult whatsoever to appreciate why his father is taking the terrible risks he is to save his son’s life.

Antonio Pinot’s (Love in the Time of Cholera, The Host) score constantly powers the increasing tension and becomes a critical part of the film’s overall effectiveness, while Dana Gonzales (Empire State) continues to build his reputation as a cinematographer with some fine work, beautifully accounting for the film’s many changes in mood and tone.

But ultimately, this is stuntman turned director Waugh’s film, and with a powerful screenplay and precise direction of his excellent cast, he has successfully marked himself as a director to watch out for.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.