Fast Five

Directed by Justin Lin

(PG-13)

***

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“It’s rare for a series at death’s door to find a second wind,” said Wesley Morris in The Boston Globe. But this crass, “frantic” fifth installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise is more fun than anything else Hollywood has produced this year. Though shiny cars and demolition-derby action abound, Fast Five ditches the previous installments’ road-race conceit for a heist caper. Reprising his role as a muscle-bound car thief, Vin Diesel flies to Rio to assemble a team for one last job—to steal $100 million from a vicious drug lord. With Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson joining the action as a U.S. agent hot on the team’s heels, you can predict what’s coming, said Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. Namely, “muscular macho guys, hot chicks, and platoons of bad guys” causing pandemonium as they career down Brazilian streets and leap over favela rooftops. With its wooden dialogue, largely mediocre performances, and stunts that call on the regular suspension of disbelief, Fast Five “flouts every rule of good filmmaking but one,” said Colin Covert in the Detroit Free Press: “It’s never dull.”