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SIX AND THE SINGLE GIRL
Femmes fatales fire up Fast & Furious 6.
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f the entirety of the nitro-burning delirium that is Fast & Furious 6 were just Gina Carano fighting Michelle Rodriguez, it would be the best movie of the year — a new-millennium Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, something nobody’s been able to deliver since Russ Meyer died. Regrettably, though, Furious 6 comes loaded with a bunch of other intrigue — something about a renegade heister trying to assemE MOR ble a device that would k noc k out a n ent ire country’s power infraT A E IN ONL .COM structure for a day. Not PITCH that you need to worry about the plot, which is about as essential here as an operating manual is to a dam burst. Wait, you say, wasn’t Rodriguez killed off in the fourth installment? The answer: sort of, but yeah, but no. The fi lmmakers have brought back her character, Letty Ortiz, which is good; in a healthy sign for our culture, every franchise that has killed off Rodriguez has also brought her back to life. Yet it’s unfortunate that the Fast & Furious series couldn’t pick up the more progressive attitudes of the Resident Evil franchise, because this movie’s gender issues are all messed up. Letty functions mostly as the movie’s pivot, an objective for Dominic (Vin Diesel, just as you remember him) and his crew to recapture. Four more women are on the
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periphery of this endeavor. Two are devoted The unkillable Michelle Rodriguez to their respective men and send them off to At times, Furious 6 starts to feel like a do man stuff, like infi ltrate prisons or track down amnesiac ex-girlfriends, while they Saw fi lm (which is funny given that James tend to the children. The other two kick a Wan, who directed the fi rst Saw, is at the significant amount of ass and have just as helm of the seventh FF movie) or one of much agency and power in their relationthe Star Wars prequels. Those associations ships as their respective partners. Guess come to mind not because of special effects which ones die? or tone, though, but because screenwriter Granted, the cast seems to be having a Chris Morgan (who has written every film in blast, for the most part. Paul Walker looks the series since the third installment, Tokyo tired. That’s just an observation — he’s play- Drift) makes a point of connecting all the ing a new father, so perhaps it’s a method characters’ backstories. It’s a big problem approach. Similarly, Vin — the franchise is now so Diesel looks off, as though entrenched in its “family” Vin Diesel looks like he’s an unstable fusion of racers and scoff laws of a Greek statue and the that it can’t introduce new an unstable fusion of Pillsbury Doughboy, concharacters that matter. No a Greek statue and the effort seems to have been stantly shifting so you Pillsbury Doughboy. never see him the same made to figure out the last way twice. (Get this man reel’s big twist, a developa David Cronenberg bodyment that could have been horror extravaganza.) Ludacris and Tyrese earthshaking, were it not rendered in such have a breezy rapport as the comic relief, but an obvious and perfunctory way. they aren’t ridiculous when called upon to That said, the coda tucked away just after get serious. the end credits start is a mother of a scene, Carano takes a chickenshit role and turns one that sets the stage for mayhem in that it into chicken salad. Building on her lead seventh film. It almost makes up for the overin Steven Soderbergh’s deconstructed acload of exposition and the muddled climax. tion masterpiece Haywire, she kicks, flings, And the series still hasn’t lost sight of what it punches and whoops the ass of your heart. does best: attractive people, the destruction The moment when Dwayne “The Rock” of property, fast cars, betrayal, forgiveness, Johnson brings down a tractor of a man with intrigue. For the sixth time, it delivers. his elbow elicited an ooh of awe at my screening, but Carano’s fight scenes got at least four. E-mail feedback@pitch.com
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