Movie Review: Fast Five Blu-ray

Fast Five brings Dominic, Brian and Mia back together to pull off one last heist, one of those retire after the action is over on a sunny beach somewhere out of the way jobs.

Film making 20/25

Video 24/25

Audio 24/25

Bonus Features 24/25

Total 92/100

Boy do reviewers like to use automobile clichés when reviewing a film centered on cars and fast driving, Fast Five sure does take its licks but is also a pretty good film. In performing reviews I check out others and see what the supposed professionals have to say and the consensus seems to be the film needs more clichés.

I found Fast Five a pretty good film and even though they play fast and loose with the laws of physics the film did work out well in the end. Fast Five is the continuation of the Fast and the Furious storyline with the group of Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto and Paul Walker as Brian O’Conner now both playing the criminals out to do justice their own way.

When the trio of Dominic, Brian and Mia are tired of running from the police they get one last shot at retirement but not the way they think. The United States sends a tough cop their way in Dwayne Johnson as U.S. Diplomatic Security Service Agent Luke Hobbs assign to bring back the two criminals accused of murdering US DEA Agents.

Luke Hobbs is the kind of agent that always gets his fugitive but runs across a problem in pursuing Dominic and Brian, corrupt Rio de Janeiro business man Hernan Reyes played by Joaquim Antonio Portugal. Reyes has bought the Rio police and practically owns the city but the start is when Dominic and Brian get a job with old friend Vince after Dominic is freed from his ride to prison after his trial.

Vince has a job for them stealing some high end cars from a train only to find out that the cars belong to Reyes and he specifically wants one of them back. Dominic and Brian are captured by Reyes and before they can be tortured for the whereabouts of the car that Mia got away with they escape.

Dominic, Brian and Mia find out why the car is so wanted by the corrupt businessman, a computer chip that has the locations of his safe houses all across Rio on it. They use the chip to find one of the safe houses but only burn the money they find there to get the rest of the money in one location.

During the car heist three US DEA agents are killed which sets off alerts when Dominic and Brian are framed as the killers during the heist. This sends Agent Hobbs after the pair to bring them back to the United States to get tried and go to jail or be executed or whatever their lot is from the US Justice System.

Dominic and Brian are captured by Hobbs along with Mia and Vince but before they can return to the Military airport to leave Rio they are ambushed by Reyes’ men and Hobbs men are killed. Dominic, Brian and Vince rescue Hobbs when the local cop being used as Hobbs’ interpreter releases them during the ambush when she sees Hobbs men getting killed.

Hobbs agrees to help Dominic and Brian steal the money after they escape and get help from other criminals to do their last big score to get back at Reyes. Dominic wants to steal the money to better hide from the law but his sister has become pregnant with Brian’s child so they really need some money for the start of their family.

They bust into the police station where Reyes has loaded all his money into a huge room sized safe and they hook two cars to the safe to drag it out of the station by cables. After a city wide chase with plenty of cops on the tail Dominic tells Brian to take off and cuts his cable remotely so he can live happily ever after with Mia.

Dominic faces down Reyes and his henchman Zizi on a bridge using the safe behind his nitro fueled car to smash the other pursuing cars. Dominic jumps out of his car after swerving the safe into Reyes car only to have Zizi jump out of his car to safety then hold his gun on Dominic.

Brian appears on the scene to shoot Zizi and Hobbs shows up on the scene but tells Dominic and Brian they have 24 hours to run before Hobbs starts chasing them again. They leave and Hobbs looks in the safe still sitting on the bridge to find it is empty.

The crew bought a safe to use for practice but wound up using it as a decoy during the city wide chase to switch with the real safe with the money in it. The last scene is the crew opening the safe to find currency from several nations loaded in the safe, now their retirement fund.

The Blu-ray edition of Fast Five includes the extended edition with a couple of extra minutes at the end of the movie but nothing that is really worthwhile. The film is great and the Blu-ray edition has plenty going for it including fantastic video and audio which is virtually perfect throughout either edition of the movie.

Video is clear and crisp with great color and the vivid scenes in Rio really highlight the great video transfer to Blu-ray. The video is so good that I could not tell any static, noise or other problems that did not come from the actual filming instead of the transfer to high definition video.

Audio is equally great with crisp clear voice and superb surround sound that really makes itself known throughout the film even in scenes where nothing epic is taking place. Audio with its DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track is well done and real attention was paid to the use of surround sound and bass for some great sounding movie effects.

Leave it to the last of the series to really contain more than enough bonus content on the Blu-ray disc as well as all those gimmicks to make watching the bonus content more enjoyable. The bonus features have plenty of making of content along with audio commentary for a great set of bonus features with only a few that are not top rated content.

The only content I really did not enjoy was the gag reel, audio commentary and the extended scene for that version of the film. All other content was well worth sitting down and dissecting the film piece by piece with and you really can enjoy the many making of features that are worth the time to watch.

U-Control and second screen options allow you to either watch the film alone or with the pauses for added features and even watch the bonus content on a second screen while the film plays. There is enough extras and ways to view them that this is how Blu-ray and films should really be released and enjoyed in their fullest.

Fast Five and its extra content on the Blu-ray edition make it not only the best of the series but easily a worthwhile purchase for a fast paced movie with enough laughs as well.


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