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'Furious 7': Makes Six Too Many
By Michael S. Goldberger, iBerkshires Film Critic
06:15PM / Wednesday, April 15, 2015
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Popcorn Column
by Michael S. Goldberger  

Universal Pictures 
The Fast and Furious family's latest road trip is a retread of explosions, speed and gunfire. But this one's got cars falling out of the sky! So it's totally different!

Trying to figure out the renegade ethos that Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto and his "team" are trying to exemplify in the frenetically action-packed "Furious 7" leaves me at a loss. Still, I'm going to have a go at it anyway ... but not for diehard fans of this hot-rodding franchise that has skidded miserably off course. Devotees couldn't care less what this O.G. (Old Gangsta) thinks about their choice of entertainment. Nope, this is in the service of auto enthusiasts and anyone who feels being well-rounded means having at least a tangential knowledge of popular culture.

"The Fast and the Furious (2001)," certainly not Shakespeare but at least fresh and unsullied, paid slick and informative homage to the new breed of gearhead: young folks who exercise their passion by hopping-up inexpensive, used Japanese imports. Reflecting the changing landscape of automobilia in general, eking relatively big horsepower from low displacement engines, was the new way to go ... literally and figuratively. Adding a fictional component to this basic chassis, the film delved into the then current world of illegal street racers.

out of 4

Thus was sown the initial enmity and ensuing mutual admiration between tough guy racer Toretto and the late Paul Walker's goody-two-shoes L.A. cop, Brian O'Conner, originally assigned to infiltrate the speedsters. In succeeding editions, the "Furious" idea succumbed to the same fate that befalls a breakthrough car when the designers can't top the germinal creativity. With cars it means lots of chrome and adulteration of the original curves. In drama, it means shifting into soap opera mode.

Gosh, there's even an amnesia angle here as Dominic's gal, Letty, played by Michelle Rodriguez, forgets almost everything except how to stomp down on the accelerator. In fact, she's a legend at the racetrack. It's all part of the two concurrently running love stories, which now play second string to the tale of international derring-do that dominates the "Furious" product. The only question to answer with each succeeding issue is, "Just how much more insanely ludicrous is this one?"

The short answer is, "a lot." The long answer is, "a whole lot." This go-round, the gang has to fend off an oath of vengeance from Jason Statham's class-A villain, Deckard Shaw. You see, Toretto & Company previously rendered comatose the evildoer's almost-as-evil brother. But y'know, we have a sneaky suspicion that this scourge, a rogue, former black op for the Brits, would find a reason to kill everyone in sight even if he didn't have a brother. Such is his charm.

But have no fear. While I won't tell you the final score, our down-home, American-raised gaggle of multicultural ragtag fringe folk are up to the task, each member a self-taught specialist in some field that contributes to the group's cool quotient. It's a curious conceit, but nothing new. Scratch the cliché just a tad and there you have the East Side Kids/Bowery Boys led by Leo Gorcey's Muggs McGinnis. Our 1940s version of street ruffian, they are counterculture patriots. Preposterous or not, in "Ghosts on the Loose" (1943) they thwart Nazi spies. They're also funny.

Too bad this contemporary permutation takes itself so seriously. "I don't have friends; I have family," Toretto apprises an adversary with sanctimonious smugness. He and his are the outcast nobility. They are secretly believers in the American Dream, but only if it can be achieved through their code of values. The status quo? As Brando's Johnny in "The Wild One" (1953) appraised, "That's square, man." Denied the straight and narrow, ostensibly by humble birth, dysfunction or an amalgam of both, it makes them, like Johnny, cynically starry-eyed.

Therein lies the adolescent appeal, an invitation to identify with these motley comrades who cut through life's red tape with Devil-may-care disregard for convention. The other attraction is, of course, the violence. It is no longer enough to dangerously race cars through the streets. Like substance addiction, the thrill level bar has been raised. Here, flivvers go flying off cliffs and diving through towering high risers with a redolence of past real-life tragedies hard to dismiss.

Oh, the plot ... I almost forgot. It really can't help but get obfuscated by all the boom, boom, boom and pretentious prattle. But in any case, good guys, bad guys and the gray folk in-between are all after the God's eye chip, a little bit of inscribed silicon that'll enable its possessor to track down anybody in the world quicker than you can say Big Brother. So that's it for Waldo.

Those who enjoy this sort of visual and aural cacophony will certainly get their money's worth: one hundred and thirty seven minutes of it. As for us car buffs who will only find minor solace in the eclectic array of hot machines (Dominic et al. driving mostly American ... the villains in foreign makes), "Furious 7" reminds that we were left in the dust after the inaugural edition.

"Furious 7," rated PG-13, is a Universal Pictures release directed by James Wan and stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Jason Statham. Running time: 137 minutes

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