Fast & Furious 7 – Movie Review by Conor MacNamara
Director: James Wan
Writers: Chris Morgan, Gary Scott Thompson
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson

The Fast and Furious series has been waging war of attrition with originality for more than a decade, and sadly it seems to be winning. As a journalist I feel existentially threatened, you already know what the film is about; I am rendered redundant, just like the plot.

The newest instalment of Dominic Toretto’s escapades has reached a level of over-the-topness that borders on self-parody. Infinite levels of money, luxury sports cars, and military hardware explode in a mushroom cloud of stimulus overload of sexual imagery. Pacing and context matters for nothing as the audience is pulled from Los Angelas to Tokyo to Abu Dhabi. Often the film forsakes plot altogether, and opts for full music video extravagance, with a full quarter of the movie dedicated to panoramic montages of Middle Eastern beaches and G-string euphoria. Combine this with absolutely hilarious product placements (Vin Diesel refusing to assist the U.S. military until he is offered a bucket of Corona), and you get a general view of what Fast and Furious 7 has to offer. As if you expected anything less.

And yet, despite the adrenaline meltdown, the film is anchored to the unwieldy baggage of sentimentality. Far too much of the film is spent clumsily trying to tie off the frayed loose ends of the previous six films, a desperate scramble to tack on the emotional developments the characters have inadvertently picked up over the previous entries. It turns out a rolling stone CAN gather moss if let careen between Hollywood writers for 14 years.

What is new on display here is enjoyable, namely Jason Statham’s performance as the lead villain Deckard Shaw, a genuinely enjoyable villain amidst a legion of mundane mercenaries and cliché wailing African warlord types. Overall, this is exactly the film you think it is, and perhaps that’s a good thing. Though it leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth, one that not even Vin Diesel’s Corona can wash out.