Fast & Furious Review

On paper this is the film that puts the series back together, and it does the necessary bookkeeping, returning the original four and killing Letty to give Dom a reason to move. In practice it is the ugliest entry by a distance. Lin shoots almost everything in a desaturated grey brown that makes Los Angeles look like a parking structure, and the tunnel finale is so murky you lose track of which car you are following.

The plot is cartel thriller boilerplate, a faceless drug lord and a border run, with none of the heist pleasure that arrives two years later. Vin Diesel plays grief as a low growl and is given very little to work with, and Brian is written as a procedural functionary who mostly stares at monitors. The best sequence, the opening tanker hijack, arrives before the film has committed to being solemn. What saves it historically is that it clears the board and establishes the crew as a unit worth reassembling. Taken on its own it is a chore.