Hey action fans, it’s Slick Dungeon here! I’m back to review the sixth in a long line of Fast and Furious movies. This one is called Fast & Furious 6 and there will be spoilers for all six films in this review. If you need to, hop in your tank, catch up to a plane in take off, harpoon the movies, watch them, and race on back here to read the review. Or you can read my previous reviews instead. You can read my review of The Fast and the Furious here, 2 Fast 2 Furious here, Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift here, Fast and Furious here, and Fast Five here.

After five movies of fast cars, big stunts, certain characters coming in and out it seemed like Fast and Furious might have run out of ways to tell the same story. In order for the sixth film to be successful a truly new direction was needed. But what do you do with a group of illegal street racers who used to steal DVD’s? Obviously you still want this to be an action film, so stunts are required. There has to be a bad guy but there are so many people on Dom’s team, one bad guy is not really enough. So what was the solution? Why, make the whole team a group of super spies of course!

I know it sounds ridiculous but this franchise had already pulled off some unlikely stuff. So, did Fast and Furious 6 deliver on its promise or is it a forgettable sequel in a warmed over franchise? Let’s dig in and find out!

Spoilers follow below!

We’re spies Now

This film doesn’t start off with a huge stunt. It still starts with a couple of cars racing. This time, it’s Dom and Brian. But this isn’t for pink slips, it’s not to outrun a bad guy. Nope, this time they are racing to a hospital where Mia is giving birth to her and Brian’s son. It’s a fairly quiet beginning to a movie in this franchise. Dom and Brian are sure that Brian at least is out of this life of crime they have been leading from here on out. He’s got major responsibilities and putting his life in danger when there is a baby around is just irresponsible.

This lasts for maybe five whole minutes of the movie. We see Hobbs, the agent from the last movie who had it out for Dom. He’s investigating crimes in London that have been happening against Interpol. These robberies are being pulled off by a team that can get in and out of a place in ninety seconds or less. We sort of assume this would be Dom’s team and Hobbs goes into an interrogation room where there is someone who looks a lot like Dom from the back. But it’s not Dom. Hobbs throws this guy around the room until he finds out some vital information about where a man named Shaw’s team will strike next. Hobbs knows he is going to be one step behind so he decides to bring in some help. He finds Dom.

Dom doesn’t have a lot of reason to help Hobbs out. He’s in a country with no extradition, he’s wealthy and as far as he knows all the people he cares about are safe. Turns out he’s not quire right about that. Hobbs has a picture of Letty taken a couple of weeks ago. This should be impossible since Letty was supposedly dead. But if she is alive, this is the one person in the world Dom would want to help out.

So, of course, Dom gets his team together. We get most of the regulars from the first five films but this time they are working for Hobbs. Dom is just doing it so he can find Letty and that’s good enough for most of them but Brian is missing home so he wants the deal to be that everyone gets pardoned in exchange for helping. Hobbs agrees to the deal.

Hobbs shows them Shaw’s team and they are basically like an evil version of Dom’s team, almost one for one. There’s even a guy who is as big as or bigger than Hobbs.

Dom and his team try to stop the robbery by Shaw’s team but they have specially made cars that cause other cars to basically flip over on impact. They are some kind of modified formula 1 racers. At one point Letty sees Dom and shoots him. The team is able to figure out that there can’t be that many people in London who can make cars like this so they track down someone who must be connected. Before they get full information, someone comes in and kills the guy who made the modifications but not before he drops a name. Braga. This is a drug lord Brian put away a couple of movies ago.

Brain feels guilty for having Letty become an informant against Braga because this put her life in danger. To make things right, Brian decides to sneak into and out of America to see Braga in prison. Brian finds out Braga was being directed by Shaw the whole time. And we find out that when Braga’s man went to kill Letty, he didn’t shoot her, he shot her car instead. The resulting explosion knocked Letty from the crash site and caused her to lose her memory.

Meanwhile, Han finds out about a street race Dom can enter where Letty will be. Dom races Letty and beats her handily but he starts to reconnect with her. Her memories aren’t back but it’s clear she feels a connection to Dom.

Hobbs finds out Shaw intends to get a final component to a device that can essentially blind all electronic systems in a country. This thing is worth billions. Hobbs also knows the location where the component is being held so he figures they can catch Shaw there. But Dom and Brian realize Shaw is not going for the location, he plans to attack the convoy transporting the device.

There is a super complicated action sequence involving a tank, high tension harpoons, and a death defying jump in the air which almost undoubtedly should have killed both Dom and Letty.

After that there is another huge action sequence involving an airplane, high tension harpoons, and driving a car through the nose of a plane on fire. Yeah, it’s all ridiculous but in the most fun way possible. Han loses Gisele in the action. Presumably she dies but you never know with this franchise. Owen Shaw also falls out of an airplane so again, presumably dies.

At the end of the movie, Dom demands his payment for the job. 1327. That’s the address of his home in Los Angeles. Dom and his family are able to go home, free and clear, no longer criminals. Brian and Mia get to be home and raise their son.

And finally, Han makes it to Tokyo. We see the chase where Han’s car is overturned and explodes. But this time, there is someone there who drops Letty’s necklace at the scene. We don’t know who this is yet but he’s played by Jason Statham and he becomes a major part of the franchise. We’ll get to him later.

In Conclusion

Is this movie ridiculous not only in plot but in the death defying stunts? Absolutely. Is this film a great time at the theater because of all that? Again, absolutely.

Also, knowing that before filming of Fast & Furious 7 is complete, Paul Walker dies, a lot of these scenes hit with more emotional intensity than one would expect. I know we really say goodbye to Brian as a character and Paul Walker as a person in the seventh film but in a lot of ways, this movie feels like a goodbye to him. Particularly heartbreaking is a scene where Mia gives Brian the go ahead to help Dom out because they watch each others backs. She tells them, “You’re better together.” And this is true both for the characters of the film and for the two actors. Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are completely at their best when they are on screen at the same time.

From this point on in the series you have to either decide to keep watching, crazy stunts, insane villains, and car thieves becoming super spies and be all in on it or pretty much just stop watching. I for one, think it’s still a lot of fun and as odd and unlikely as everything is, I still just have a good time watching these, this sixth one included.

Speedily yours,

Slick Dungeon