Taglines: Feel the Speed. Feel the Rush.
Vin Diesel and Paul Walker lead a reunion of returning all-stars from every chapter of the explosive franchise built on speed in Fast Five. In this installment, former cop Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) partners with ex-con Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) on the opposite side of the law. Dwayne Johnson joins returning favorites Jordana Brewster, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, Matt Schulze, Tego Calderon and Don Omar for this ultimate high-stakes race.
Since Brian and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) broke Dom out of custody, they’ve blown across many borders to elude authorities. Now backed into a corner in Rio de Janeiro, they must pull one last job in order to gain their freedom. As they assemble their elite team of top racers, the unlikely allies know their only shot of getting out for good means confronting the corrupt businessman who wants them dead. But he’s not the only one on their tail.
Hard-nosed federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) never misses his target. When he is assigned to track down Dom and Brian, he and his strike team launch an all-out assault to capture them. But as his men tear through Brazil, Hobbs learns he can’t separate the good guys from the bad. Now, he must rely on his instincts to corner his prey… before someone else runs them down first.
About the Production
A testament to the franchise’s staying power has been its ability to sustain relevancy and increase anticipation with an irresistible combination of memorable characters, blistering action and engaging storylines. After the first film’s smash success in 2001, outcast cop Brian O’Conner was partnered with a new crew of savvy racers for 2003’s 2 Fast 2 Furious.
A new cast of young up-and-comers in 2006’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift hit the mark, and both films performed wildly at the worldwide box office. But Neal Moritz, the producer behind the global phenomenon, knew that if the series was to continue to thrive, the next chapter would need to go back to its roots and delve into the gritty underground world of the ex-con and undercover cop. These adversaries on opposite sides of the law shared a passion for racing… and a grudging respect for one another.
The onscreen reunion of Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster in Fast & Furious was met with a thunderous audience reaction and a record-breaking opening weekend that resulted in more than $350 million at the worldwide box office. The film, which debuted domestically on April 3, 2009, had a record best non-holiday opening weekend for the studio and became the highest-grossing film for that weekend in motion-picture history. It confirmed that the heart of the franchise lay squarely where it all began: with Dom Toretto, Brian O’Conner and their extended family and close friends.
Moritz, a veteran producer with a diverse roster of box-office hits, has always had his finger on the pulse of pop culture and alongside Diesel, who also served as a producer on Fast & Furious, reinvigorated the franchise. The audience couldn’t get enough of the modern-day cowboys and fan response to the film guaranteed another chapter in the series.
“The strength of Fast & Furious and now Fast Five is all about these guys who have a very distinct moral and ethical code that they live by—whether it’s on one side of the law or the other,” remarks Moritz. “Dom’s got his code, Brian’s got his code and even our newest character, Hobbs, played by Dwayne Johnson, has his. As these intersect and conflict with each other, which they do many times over, it adds great tension to the film’s action. It’s great to see when those two things ignite.”
Diesel is introspective about the rabid fan response that has kept this series thriving for more than a decade. “Not a lot of event films like ours are about family, or specifically, a family of misfits and outsiders. We saw that in The Fast and the Furious, and it continues to be true even on Fast Five. There’s a brotherhood that’s present in the franchise, and it speaks to the audience in a real way. It’s the family the audience wants to be a part of with people they can trust and rely on…like Dom and his crew.”
Impatient fans were ready for another story and let it be known. Walker recalls the excitement generated by Fast & Furious: “When Fast & Furious came out and was so well received, we knew that the fifth one was coming. Normally I hear, ‘Hey, when are you going to start the next one?’ from fans. But this time, it was more of a statement.”
When it came to Fast Five, Moritz and Diesel, who return as producers, knew that the next chapter in the series had to add fuel to the franchise in a big way. They looked to director Justin Lin, whose work on the previous two Fast chapters illustrated his knack for melding strong character-driven story with white-knuckle action. He was just the director to dispel audiences’ suspicion of anything that smacked of “been there, seen that.”
The filmmaker, a fan of the franchise since he saw The Fast and the Furious on its opening weekend when he was a film student, knew exactly what he wanted. It would be a one-two punch of inspired casting coupled with jaw-dropping action. Lin reflects: “I felt like there were still a lot of areas where this franchise could go. I appreciate that the studio has never asked to recycle the same thing over and over again. By virtue of that, this franchise has been able to grow and evolve and mature. I came back for that reason. The core theme is about family. The fourth one explored the sacrifice elements of family. As soon as I was able to grasp that the next one is about freedom and family, it became clear to me why I wanted to return.”
He knew if he were to helm his third film in the series, the expectations from the fans would be huge. Lin offers: “I know the action in this one is bigger than the last two combined. There are about six action pieces in this movie, not just car chases, but foot chases and a heist as well. It’s just jam-packed.” He understood that everything had to be bigger to appease an audience hungry for action, but no action sequence would make sense without a great story that delved into where our heroes were in their struggles to protect family while on the run. Lin collaborated with another series regular, screenwriter Chris Morgan to ensure that their joint vision was reflected in the script.
Development on Fast Five took off at warp speed. Once again, Morgan, whose action-packed scripts for the box-office smash Wanted, Fast & Furious and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift established him as a go-to writer for action-driven drama, would be returning. As a fan of the genre, Morgan was entrusted to help director Lin conceive of a premise that would surpass their previous efforts. He says: “For me, each chapter in this franchise is an extension of the first one, and they each get bigger. It is always a privilege to be able to revisit a good character-driven story. This franchise is more than street racing and tuner cars; it really is about this larger family and community of racers.”
Morgan and the director share a collaborative working style and, over the course of developing and filming the previous Fast films, the two developed their own shorthand. “Jumping into production, like we did on Fast Five, forces everyone to be clever,” Morgan explains. “Justin and I come at story points from different angles but something happens in that room when we sit and talk about the story, and we always end up going down a road that we both love.”
Fast Five
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Tego Calderon, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Elsa Pataky, Dwayne Johnson
Directed by: Justin Lin
Screenplay by: Chris Morgan
Production Design by: Peter Wenham
Cinematography by: Stephen F. Windon
Film Editing by: Kelly Matsumoto, Fred Raskin, Christian Wagner
Set Decoration by: Bob Kensinger
Costume Design by: Sanja Milkovic Hays
Art Direction by: Beat Frutiger, Andrew Neskoromny, Thomas Valentine
Music by: Brian Tyler
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, sexual content and language.
Studio: Universal Pictures
Release Date: April 29, 2011
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