Verdict:
So let me ask you a question. Imagine there is a man who had been involved in dangerous criminal activities in the past. Having managed to survive and even earn some money, he now has a wife and a young child. An old acquaintance shows up and tries to entice the man to go back to doing dangerous work. What would be the man’s reaction be and what would be his wife’s reaction? If you answered something like, “the man would decline and the wife would get furious and probably start yelling”, then you are a sane human living in the real world. That’s not the world this film is set in.
In this world, a British policeman shoots a submachine gun from the open window of his car on a busy street. Family and perfectly good lives are being abandoned for the sake of a questionable adventure. Pretty girls are running around with guns and driving fast cars. Everyone spits very cool moronic lines.
The movie throws character and story development right out of the window and makes whatever shortcuts it needs to make to get you to the speeding cars as soon as possible.
Because what Fast and Furious does well is its signature action racing. There is a good variety of speeding vehicles getting smashed and doing the smashing. All that action is really well shot. The cuts between the shots are fast but not erratic. The shots are made from interesting angles, often from the bystander’s perspective. There are quite a few fight scenes and those are well choreographed and well shot. In fact, there are usually several fights scenes happening at the same time and you can tell who is punching whom, where and how. Compliments to the stunt team.
To its credit, even though the plot only exists to get you from one action scene to the next and it is not very logical, on a micro scale, you do understand what is going on from scene to scene. As the movies progressed, the overall plot mattered less and less, and the situational narrative and the relationship between the characters mattered more and more. I wished the plot would stay away, but it raised its ugly head again towards the end.
The acting from the leads, Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Dwayne Johnson hold up this film. Diesel and Rodriguez still have chemistry. If anything, these people got better at doing the Fast and Furious schtick. Dwayne Johnson as the lawman brings the much-needed fun to the movie, given the fact that Vin’s and Paul’s characters are always so serious, playing the same old puppy-eyed good guys.
The character of the British villain played by Luke Evans does not bring much flavour besides being evil, but at least he does his job at appearing really cold and calculating.
The rest of the crew are not as good, though neither is the script they are given to read, as the dialogue consists primarily of shallow one-liners. Interestingly though, the better dialogue is saved for the team of the British villain. In fact, I wish those guys got more screen time and development. The side characters are really at their best when they shut up and fight.
What is really funny, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is the by now famous runway scene at the end. Somewhere in Spain there is a military base that has a runway that runs the entire circumference of the Earth. In conclusion, Fast and Furious 6 is a B movie from the 80s that received a huge budget and prominent actors, who were diligently showing up to work, in spite of reportedly getting sick of this franchise.