From his humble beginnings as a garage owner and street race bookmaker, Tej Parker is now
a hacker, safecracker, and full-on secret agent who's driven a small tank into battle
against a nuclear submarine.
In other words, it's been a wild ride.
This is Tej's "Fast and Furious" backstory explained.
When Tej Parker first appears in "2 Fast 2 Furious," he's the nerve center of the racing
scene in Miami, Florida.
A former street racer himself, Tej retired from competitive driving after surviving a
high-speed collision, and now, he prefers to remain on the sidelines.
This has only made him a more important figure in town.
By night, Tej books the match-ups for quarter-mile drag racing contests on the Miami streets.
By day, Tej hosts waterfront jetski races.
In either case, Tej gets to collect his take from all the wagers being made, as well as
earn some extra cash by betting on his favorites.
Outside of his position of power in the world of illicit street racing, Tej also owns a
legitimate business, Tej's Garage, where he holds court with mechanic Jimmy and local
artist/racer Suki.
During his reign over racing in Miami, Tej is a young and boisterous hustler whose main
concern is making money, but he's also a leader with the respect of his peers on the scene.
Other racers follow his rules without question, and when it's time to call in a favor, he
has the entire community behind him.
Future films in the series will imply another life for Tej outside of this scene.
Beyond the years of studying computer programming that becomes apparent later on, Tej also hints
in "Fast Five" that he's had prior experience cracking sophisticated locks.
"Yeah, there's my boy right there."
When cop turned fugitive Brian O'Conner arrives in Miami, he quickly becomes one of the stars
of the racing circuit.
Tej sets Brian up with a job at his garage, as well as a bunk aboard one of his nearby
houseboats, where Tej can call on him to participate in street races on a moment's notice.
When Brian and his childhood friend Roman Pearce get dragged into an undercover operation
for U.S. Customs, they rely on Tej and his team at the garage to keep their government-issued
Mitsubishi Evolutions in order ... and also to attempt to disable the GPS tracking devices
that the feds are using to keep an eye on them.
And when their mission goes sideways, Brian and Roman need to lose their government tails
in order to defeat drug kingpin Carter Verone and rescue his hostage, Agent Monica Fuentes.
In a clever effort to aid their escape,
Tej organizes dozens of street racers to participate in a "scramble," confusing police helicopters
and allowing Brian and Roman to switch cars.
Tej himself drives off in Brian's Evo, drawing the authorities' attention and helping Brian
and Roman to make a clear getaway.
In the missing years between "2 Fast 2 Furious" and "Fast Five," Tej seems to mellow out and
begins to wear his intellect on his sleeve.
At some point, Tej's Garage closes down, and his connection to the Miami racing scene is
never mentioned again.
Tej Parker is one of two characters introduced in "2 Fast 2 Furious" who become regulars
in the franchise.
The other is Roman Pearce, the fast-talking ex-con, performance driver, and best friend
of Brian O'Conner.
Tej and Roman don't interact much in their first appearance together, but by the time
they both return in "Fast Five," they've developed a playful rivalry that evolves over the following
films.
Tej and Roman share a love of cars and a chosen family, but otherwise, they seem like total
opposites.
Roman thinks of himself as a charmer, a smooth operator with endless sex appeal, although
he habitually makes a fool out of himself.
Tej, on the other hand, has a quiet confidence backed up by a competence at nearly everything
he attempts.
Roman is stingy towards others while Tej is charitable, but they both enjoy treating themselves
to the finer things.
Despite getting on each other's nerves, Tej and Roman can be found hanging out nearly
any time the Toretto crew has some downtime.
Even Tej and Roman's mutual interest in dating Ramsey feels like it has less to do with her
and more to do with their never-ending contest over who's cooler.
In "Fast Five," years after their Miami adventure, Brian O'Conner calls on Tej Parker for help
once again.
Brian and fellow precision driver/action hero Dominic Toretto are on the lam in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, where they've made an enemy of local crime lord Hernan Reyes.
Hoping both to get even with Reyes and to buy themselves a clean slate, Brian, Dom,
and Mia plan to steal Reyes' $100 million fortune in a complex and daring heist, and
they'll need a crack team of all their most reliable allies to pull it off.
Brian brings Tej on board as their "circuit man," an expert in electronics, software,
and surveillance.
Using a customized remote-control car with a digital camera mount, Tej is able to get
a look at the high-end vault in the Rio police station where Reyes has consolidated his cash,
and he can recall the detailed specifications of the vault from memory.
However, Tej has enough safecracking experience to know that this one is basically unbreakable,
and friends Brian and Roman are shocked by his level of expertise in this area.
"Do I wanna know how you knew all that?"
"I had a life before you knew me, O'Conner.
Let's just leave it at that, alright?"
But with help from the rest of the gang, Tej acquires the biometrics he needs to fool the
safe's palm scanner, and he takes home roughly $11 million from the heist.
Not too shabby.
The Rio heist makes Tej a multi-millionaire, but he still enjoys working for a living.
Tej uses the windfall to open a new garage, Tej's Auto Service, in the hopes of creating
a place where ordinary folks can get a fair price on repairs.
In "Fast & Furious 6," we also learn that Tej has developed a reputation as a modern-day
Robin Hood, one that precedes him across the globe.
Tej also has no patience for the stuffy, racist posturing of high society, and he's more than
willing to leverage his newfound wealth to stick it to them.
"I don't mean any offense, gentlemen, but you couldn't possibly afford the cars in this
auction.
No gaudy jewelry, no substantial entourage, no 'honeys.'"
In "Fast & Furious 6," Tej and U.S. Diplomatic Security Service Agent Luke Hobbs attend a
classic car auction for high rollers, and they're rudely brushed off by a snooty English
salesman.
Tej takes this opportunity to give the salesman a dressing down, literally.
First, Tej asserts dominance by buying the entire lot.
Then, he exploits the salesman's sudden polite subservience to demand that he give his shirt,
pants, and jacket to Hobbs — who the suit couldn't possibly fit.
Tej teaches the salesman a valuable lesson in humility, turning the tables on someone
who assumed he could treat a stranger like trash.
To quote another movie:
"Big mistake.
Huge."
Tej sits out most of the vehicular action in "2 Fast 2 Furious" and "Fast Five," but
beginning with "Fast & Furious 6," Tej plays a more hands-on role in the Toretto crew's
high-octane adventures.
For example, in "Fast & Furious 6," Tej participates in the failed attempt to chase down the mercenary
Owen Shaw's indestructible flip car in London.
He's also the first member of the squad to be defeated when his BMW is remotely hacked
and disabled, leading to a gnarly looking crash.
From this point on, Tej tends to favor heavier vehicles in combat situations.
Tej also continues to use his mechanical genius to support the crew, such as when he reverse-engineers
a harpoon gun used by Shaw's team to give it increased speed and range.
This weapon becomes key to stopping Shaw in the film's climactic runway chase, in which
the Toretto crew attempts to stop Shaw and his team from escaping Spain in a massive
Antonov cargo jet.
As the jet approaches takeoff speed, Gisele and Roman use Tej's NOS-powered harpoon guns
to attach cars driven by Han and Tej to the wings of the plane.
This added weight prevents Shaw from lifting off long enough for Brian to fire a third
harpoon through one of the jet's control flaps, allowing driver Mia Toretto to pull the plane
down and crash it on the runway.
Over time, Tej also grows into the team's chief strategist.
In "Fast & Furious 6," he coordinates the group's efforts to stop Owen Shaw from stealing
the final component of the dangerous Nightshade device from a tank at a Spanish military base.
In "Furious 7," when the hacker Ramsey is captured by the terrorist Mose Jakande, it's
implied that it's Tej's idea to airdrop the team in parachute-equipped cars and ambush
her kidnappers on an otherwise impassible road.
Later, Tej devises the plan for stealing the God's Eye global surveillance program from
the penthouse of Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi, coordinating the team's movements while he
hacks the building's security systems.
Tej's brain is working overtime throughout "Furious 7," but during the Ethihad Tower
heist, Tej also gets a moment to show off some of his other muscles.
When the building's alarms are triggered, he and Ramsey are discovered in one of the
tower's maintenance rooms by a security guard.
To everyone's surprise, Tej handily defeats the guard with a flurry of well-placed punches
and elbow strikes before the baddie can alert anyone else to their presence.
In other words, this dude is equal parts brain and brawn.
During the final confrontation with Mose Jakande in Los Angeles, Tej directs traffic from the
back of Roman's Chevrolet Caprice while the team keeps Ramsey alive long enough to steal
the God's Eye program back from Jakande.
This is the last of the crew's major operations in which Tej takes a backseat to anyone.
In "The Fate of the Furious," Tej continues to play a more active role in the Toretto
crew's missions.
First, he rides out with the rest of the team when they're assigned to collect an EMP device
from a base in Berlin.
To cover their escape, Tej rigs a giant wrecking ball to swing through their pursuers — a
smashing plan that leads to a spectacular pile-up.
Later, after Dom goes rogue and runs off with the EMP, Tej drives one of the six cars sent
after him, though Dom is able to outsmart and outdrive his entire team.
Dom turns out to be working for the cyberterrorist Cipher, who has circumvented Ramsey's God's
Eye program and made Dom seemingly impossible to find.
However, Tej and Ramsey are able to outthink Cipher and track him down, only to discover
that Dom is already inside their base.
But why has their leader gone to the dark side?
Well, Cipher has taken Dom's newborn son hostage, forcing him to run smash-and-grab missions
for her in exchange for the child's life.
For his supposedly final task, Cipher sends Dom to Vladovin, Russia, in order to hijack
a nuclear submarine.
The Toretto crew — minus Toretto himself, of course — are dispatched to stop Dom,
and Tej plays a key role in averting a nuclear catastrophe, as he walks Roman and the agent
known as Little Nobody through the process of disarming the sub.
Finally, Tej rides into battle against a confused Russian regiment in a Ripsaw tank, rescuing
a drowning Roman along the way.
Undeniably, Tej Parker has been a loyal, integral part of Dom's crew since he was enlisted to
help with the heist in "Fast Five."
Through each subsequent adventure, the character has reinforced his worth, becoming the technical
expert and providing some much-needed brain power.
By the eighth film in the "Fast" saga, he was one of the primary forces behind stopping
Cipher and Toretto from enacting their nefarious plans.
So, it was not surprising to discover Tej taking on a leadership role by the beginning
of "F9."
At the start of the ninth "Fast" film, it is Tej, assisted by Ramsey and Roman, who
tracks down Dominic Toretto in his retirement farmhouse to share news of Cipher's escape.
With or without Dom's help, Tej is set on answering a distress call from Mr. Nobody
and intends to lead a crew into Montequinto — and he would have, had Toretto's brother
not been involved.
Typically reserved for intelligence missions and reinforcement driving, Tej Parker is not
typically at the center of the action.
Understandably, the character has not been a part of any hand-to-hand combat throughout
most of the franchise.
That changed in "F9," when it was left to Roman and Tej to commandeer a vehicle operated
by an enemy crew — and they found themselves faced with four armed guards.
Fans did get a sneak peek at Tej's fighting skills in "Furious 7," when the character
was quickly able to disarm an armed guard.
However, in "F9," Tej and Roman were significantly outnumbered and had to perform far more hand-to-hand
combat skills than they ever have before.
Thanks to some impromptu driving from Ramsey, the pair were able to come out on top.
Thanks to their victory, the crew gained a new weapon: magnets.
The "Fast" saga has continuously outdone itself with new tricks and action sequences, and
"F9" took things to another level.
Thanks to Tej's ingenuity, the magnets became an integral part of their mission moving forward.
First, the magnets assist the crew in making a hasty getaway when their hideout is infiltrated
by Jakob Toretto and his team.
Later, the magnets help to cause mechanical mayhem as Dom and his team utilize them to
draw in and repel cars during a climactic race scene.
While experts have dispelled the myth that any of these movie stunts would be possible
and that magnets are simply not that strong, it doesn't change the fact that it's pretty
cool.
When audiences first met Tej in 2003's "2 Fast 2 Furious," they could never have imagined
how high he would fly.
Admitting in his first appearance that he was retired from driving, it was already a
shock when Tej became a part of Dom's crew in "Fast Five."
And in "F9" the character pulled off the most elaborate stunt of any character in the franchise,
lifting into the stratosphere to fly a car into space.
Tej's rocket-powered Pontiac Fiero is the result of ingenuity from near-forgotten franchise
players Sean, Twinkie, and Earl from "Tokyo Drift."
Although their test run did not go quite as planned, a second attempt managed to get Tej
and his long-time wingman Roman out of Earth's atmosphere.
By the end of "F9," Tej Parker found himself in Dom's backyard once again, enjoying barbecue
and preparing for his next insane mission.