Just as the sun will come out tomorrow, so too can we count on those magnificent beefcake
boys and gearhead girls in the Fast and the Furious franchise to arrive with another action-packed
installment.
From a focus on family to celebrity cameos, here are the things that happen in every single
Fast and Furious movie.
While Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6 cemented "family" as a highly memeable character motivation
for Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto, "family" has always been the third most important f-word
of the franchise, right behind "fast" and "furious."
After all, the first film is about a loner cop finding a community in Dom's DVD-player
stealing crew.
And the sequel is about Paul Walker's Brian trying to mend fences with his childhood best
friend, Roman, in a story that wouldn't play out any differently if they were actually
related by blood.
Tokyo Drift is about carving out a place for yourself apart from a familial legacy you
might not have wanted, and the fourth film is about what happens when a member of your
family is murdered — you go on a street-racing rampage.
In short, long before Dom looked right at the camera and told audiences around the world
—
"I don't have friends, I got family."
— Fast and the Furious has always been about the family connections we make for ourselves.
The Fast and the Furious franchise as it stands today feels more like a James Bond spin-off
series than the adventures of a bunch of street-racing dirtbags that we started with.
Still, even as the stakes have gotten higher and Dom's family has gotten bigger, a major
constant in the franchise is that most problems can be solved with fast cars.
It might seem silly to point this out — after all, one of the two major adjectives in the
franchise's title is related to speed — but considering how massive the set pieces have
become, it's comforting that the main solution to any problem has always been fast cars driving
where you wouldn't expect cars to drive.
Whether it's destroying the entire police force of Rio de Janeiro in Fast Five or taking
out a nuclear submarine in Russia with the use of an American muscle car, there's no
problem in the Fast and the Furious world that can't be solved by living your life one
quarter-mile at a time.
"Start out stealing DVD players and ends up heisting 100 million dollars from Rio."
"Not bad, huh?"
Considering the utility of a properly engineered vehicle in the Fast and the Furious franchise,
it's no surprise that the crew takes some time to appreciate their fleet of their vehicles
whenever they can.
The Fast Family are a bunch of gearheads at heart, and that means their cars aren't just
tools for super-spy adventures — the cars are a reflection of themselves.
Before the franchise became as action-driven as it is today, the cars were arguably the
biggest draw of the early films, and that aesthetic appreciation remains a core driver
in the franchise.
No matter how high the stakes are, there's always time for the characters to pause and
admire the cars they'll be driving in upcoming scenes.
That moment arguably reaches its peak in Fate of the Furious when Little Nobody takes the
Fast Family into a secret government warehouse full of confiscated vehicles they can use
to rescue Dom.
Just because the world is at stake doesn't mean we can't take some time to peek under
the hood
Here's something you might not have noticed: No good guy in the Fast and the Furious franchise
has ever lost a fight.
If that feels surprising, think about some of the greatest smackdowns in the films.
There's Dom fighting Hobbs in a garage during Fast Five, Hobbs fighting Shaw early in Furious
7, or Dom fighting literally every other member of his family in Fate of the Furious.
But these impressive battles don't just belong to the beefcakes.
Brian somehow manages to beat Kiet in Furious 7, despite the fact the bad guy is played
by real-life Thai martial artist Tony Jaa.
Most fights in the Fast and the Furious universe either end with the good guy walking away
the clear victor, or the fight itself being interrupted by circumstances outside of the
hero's control.
With regards to that Hobbs and Shaw smackdown, the fight only ends when Hobbs is knocked
out of a window by an explosion while covering for Elena.
When it comes to the Hobbs and Dom slugfest, it gets interrupted before an unquestionable
victor can be crowned.
As a result, there are rumors of a "can't lose" contract for some of the actors.
But whether or not that's true, the fact remains that if you're a good guy in the world of
Fast and the Furious, no weapon raised against you will prosper.
Even comic relief Roman gets a moment in Fate of the Furious where he knocks a guy off a
snowmobile with a car door before shooting three other faceless goons.
The Fast and the Furious franchise has earned a bit of a reputation for being needlessly
complex, which isn't really fair.
After all, the order of the films are simple.
If you want to watch it chronologically, you just watch The Fast and the Furious, the short
film Turbo Charged Prelude to 2 Fast 2 Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, the short film Los Bandoleros,
Fast & Furious, Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6 until the post-credits scene, then watch
half of Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift.
After that, take a break, for sure, then watch the post-credits to Fast & Furious 6, watch
most of the rest of Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift, watch Furious 7 until Dom wants to
go to Tokyo, then finish watching the very end of Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift before
completing Furious 7 and enjoying Fate of the Furious.
Oh, and watch Better Luck Tomorrow if you're a completionist and want to see the origin
of Han.
Simple, right?
Okay, maybe the franchise has gotten pretty complex, but that's what happens when you
keep building on the continuity without writing characters off between films.
Each installment showcases either the appearance of an old character or at least a tossed-off
mention to previous films.
It can take the form of Brian investigating Fast & Furious villain Braga midway through
Fast & Furious 6, or Dom relying on his Fast Five crew in Fate of the Furious.
But no matter who shows up or when, you can always count on some familiar faces to pop
up in a Fast and the Furious film.
With each new Fast and the Furious film's budget ballooning into the hundreds of millions,
it's no stretch to say the movies are known for their jaw-dropping action.
But even when the budget was in the sub-hundred million range, the filmmakers still found
a way to pack plenty of action into the films.
The Fast and the Furious features a climax in which one of Dom's men is wired tight to
a semi-truck while the driver shoots a shotgun at Dom's crew.
Meanwhile, 2 Fast 2 Furious ends with Roman and Brian launching a car onto a boat like
someone trying to weaponize the Dukes of Hazzard boys.
And Tokyo Drift finds Han and the ostensible protagonist, Sean Boswell, drifting through
the Tokyo streets as crowds of people part like the Red Sea.
By the time Fast Five rolls around, the films have gotten so big that Brian and Dom are
destroying Rio with a vault that they're using like a wrecking ball.
There's no telling what insane set pieces we can expect in the future, but if there's
anything that lives up to Dom leaping across a bridge from his car to save Letty from getting
knocked off a tank, we can all die happy.
At its core, the first Fast and the Furious film is a movie with simple pleasures in mind.
There are cars, and they will go fast.
There are tough guys, and they will win fights.
There are beautiful girls in bikinis that are big fans of both cars and tough guys,
and they will dance.
Even as the films have rounded out the cast, those core ideals remain the same.
No matter what destinations the Fast Family visit, there's always going to be time for
a race, and there are always going to be beautiful women that are excited to watch.
Even while Dom was working to restore Letty's memory in Fast & Furious 6, there was a London
street race that featured plenty of car girls.
It might be one of the strongest connective tissues uniting the various locales in the
franchise, a signifier of car culture that surpasses any sort of division or geographical
line.
Or, most likely, it's because the Fast and the Furious directors like shooting scenes
with gorgeous women in exotic locales.
It's not all seriousness and widescreen action when you're a part of Dom's crew.
Sure, there's a chance that you'll be blown up by a former SAS operative or that you'll
fall onto an endless airplane runway in the middle of a gun battle, but there are good
times, too.
After all, Dom knows how to throw a killer party, even if the beer selection is limited.
"You can have any brew you want.
As long as it's a corona."
Every film in the Fast and the Furious franchise has made time for a party, whether it's the
now traditional post-action barbecue or the low-budget house party of The Fast and the
Furious.
Even Furious 7, grim as everything was in the wake of Han's untimely murder, still found
time to have a party DJ-ed by T-Pain in Abu Dhabi.
When you live your life one quarter-mile at a time, you've got to leave room to celebrate.
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