T. Hobbes & G.B. Shaw Present: The Sound and the Fury
In which I write too many words about a car movie
Sup Doggies,
I recently watched Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, a summer blockbuster about the trials and travails of Thomas Hobbes and George Bernard Shaw and how they found each other despite being hundreds of years apart. JK. But what if? In actuality F&FP:H&S tells the story of two bald men made completely out of muscle fiber who just want to kiss. Taking into account my age, race, gender, and socio-economic status I am perhaps quite obviously a fan of the Fast & Furious series. While this may have been a brave and bold thing to admit in 2006, no one would bat an eye at it now. They’d probably roll an eye or two at it though. Despite the numerous cast changes and a nasty predilection for retconning the series history (lore, for all my fantasy heads) the movies have only gotten more popular over time. Well-shot fight scenes, bigger budgets, the addition of action movie stalwarts such as The Rock and Jason Statham, and most importantly, a willingness to not take itself too seriously have all led to the embrace of the Fast & Furious as an upper-tier action franchise. Remarkably, despite the myriad of changes, they’ve kept the same spirit throughout their 18-year run. The first movie The Fast and the Furious was released in 2001. For comparison, Iron Man, which kicked off Marvel’s reign was released in 2008. However, F&FP:H&S, even with its multiple ampersands, loses a touch of that magic.
Directed by David Leitch of John Wick, Deadpool 2 and Atomic Blonde fame and starring Dwayne Johnson neé The Rock, and Jason Statham, F&FP:H&S sets itself up for guaranteed success, at least to a particular type of person. Certainly, great moments do exist in the movie. The helicopter sequence on Samoa, seen partially in the trailer, whips ass. Idris Elba plays an excellent heavy, (a term I just remembered existed in large part due to that new Tarantino movie, don’t cancel me) bringing a good dose of seeming invincibility to the thankless role of bad guy in an F&F movie. Vanessa Kirby also shines as Statham’s sister/potential love interest to Johnson/plot McGuffin. But despite their top billing, they’re hardly on screen. This movie is about Johnson and Statham and pretty much nothing else. Most of the first half of the movie plays out as single close-up shots of the pair’s faces, each actor doing their best tough guy grimace.
While the viability of Statham and Johnson as box office draws allowed this movie to get made, the singular focus on just these two holds it back. The main F&F series often gets clowned on for their extensive use of the “family” theme. If Vin Diesel doesn’t give a rousing speech about “family” while drinking a Corona than it’s not a F&F movie. F&FP:H&S continues to center the idea of family but unlike the mainline movies doesn’t do it successfully. The sense that Vin Diesel actually believes in the idea of family that F&F sells makes it work. Diesel certainly holds the spotlight in those movies, but an extensive supporting cast, including Paul Walker (RIP), Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, Jordana Brewster, Gal Godot, Sung Kang, and more, make up the family. Most importantly however, they remain on screen. Solo missions are a rarity in an F&F movie, usually the whole gang works to take someone down. This tag team style of action holds the F&F movies together, turning “family” from risible cliché into a theme that can drive a series of nine figure box office receipts. F&FP:H&S does not do this and often times seems like if Mission Impossible did a spin-off movie with Ving Rhames (I said Michael Clarke Duncan by accident in the original post but I changed it, thank you Tony) and Jeremy Renner’s character.
F&FP:H&S fails in making family work as the theme of the movie – and trust me, it’s the freaking theme – because until the very end you never see them working as a family. Statham and Kirby, who are 21 years apart in age, play a brother and sister pair who are 2 years apart. Despite many opportunities, not a single scene exists where they kick ass together. Similarly, we don’t meet Johnson’s family until the very end, where of course, they work together to save the day. But because we only met them 20 minutes before, and in spite of some heavy telegraphing at the beginning that this will happen, it falls pretty flat. Instead what we get is a movie length version of the “I will beat you like a Cherokee Drum” scene from Fate of the Furious. But F&F for the most part does not involve blood family either. That series mostly focuses on alt-family, life-long friends, your squad, ride or dies, etc etc. But F&FP:H&S doesn’t have any of that either. Rob Delaney (the god) and Ryan Reynolds (doing his Deadpool schtick) get introduced early on as CIA handlers and then immediately get discarded. Kevin Hart, in a role that seemed written for Tyrese Gibson, plays an air marshal that helps the guys out in an attempt to be a “third squaddie,” but gets dropped just as quickly. Even Eddie Marsan, doing a Russian accent for some reason, gets killed, even though he helped the team when they needed him most. The lack of care for the non-main characters sinks this movie.
Of course, other sins abound in this movie. Johnson says he “tracked some dark web chatter,” Elba’s bad guy team “hacked all the media outlets mainframes,” the writers basically stole the plot from Mission Impossible 2, Mission Impossible 1, and Deus Ex, in that order. Johnson’s daughter is reading The Old Man and the Sea in middle school for some reason. Does it pass the Bechdel test? LOL, c’mon. The meta jokes, a reference to The Italian Job and Johnson doing the eyebrow thing, Ryan Reynolds giving away the end of Game of Thrones, don’t really land either. David Leitch also tries to bring a more John Wick-esque physicality to some of the fight scenes, which just doesn’t really work. Finally, someone has got to tell these guys that jokes about balls should be used sparingly, rather than every other minute. Though the Mike Oxsmal bit did make me laugh out loud.
Seeing as I’ve already written over 1,000 words on a freaking Fast and Furious movie, I’ll end it here. Themes are important, baby. Even if you’re making a lunkhead summer blockbuster. You gotta believe in that shit.
P.S. Yes there is a timely application of Nos in this movie. Though they call it “moonshine” for God knows what reason.