Fast & Furious 4 — Mad Dom: Fury Road

“You still put out milk and cookies for Santa Claus?”

— Dominic Toretto

“Yeah.”

— Brian O’Conner

A grown adult man who is both a federal agent and a street racer still believes in Santa? Yeah, no. I’ve learned that “yeah” was just Paul Walker’s verbal filler. Like in 2 Fast 2 Furious when he pokes fun at Bilkins’s shirt and Bilkins says it’s his day off, Brian just says “yeah.”

Who’s fast? 🏃️💨

Not Letty because she’s dead.

When Dom’s girlfriend is killed, he seeks revenge. Brian is in the FBI again, this time pursuing a drug kingpin, Braga. Just so happens that Letty’s killer, Fenix, works for Braga. They team up so Brian can take down Braga and Dom can kill Fenix. They do.

Gal Gadot!

This was her film debut. The Israeli bombshell plays Gisele, a higher-up (right-hand woman?) in Braga’s organization. She is thirsty for Dom — immediately and persistently — but he’s grieving Letty, so he rebuffs her advances.

When is fast? 🤔

This was a soft reboot of the franchise. Mia says that Brian has been gone five years, but it’s been eight years since the first film. So this movie takes place in 2006? They cleanly set up Han to go off to Tokyo. Great job there.

Who’s furious? 😡

Dom, basically the whole movie, but in a really cool way. I honestly love Vin Diesel on screen. He can be completely composed and just about to snap all in the same posture.

• Nathan O. Stringer vs. the guys riding motorbikes down 2nd Avenue. These street racers were so loud that I couldn’t hear Fast & Furious! I had to pause the movie twice and wait for them to pass. I appreciate the irony, but I don’t appreciate them.
• The Dominican Republic vs. Dom and his crew, because they keep heisting gasoline from trucks
• FBI higher-ups vs. Brian, because he’s just a big ol’ troublemaker
• Agent Stasiak vs. Brian, because Brian is ultimately the better agent and Stasiak will likely get passed over for promotion, again. It’s Trinh who deserves a raise anyway. She crushes it with desk research.

She may be a newbie, but she asks good questions, shows initiative and works hard. I bet she has Penning’s job before she’s 40.

• Brian vs. GPS, because Magellan keeps trying to reroute him when he would rather drive down alleys, through a house and off a bridge than take a u-turn.
• Dom vs. Brian, because Brian shows up
• Dom vs. Fenix, because Fenix killed Letty
• Dom vs. the world, because Letty is dead
• The People of the State of California vs. Dominic Toretto. Dom is sentenced to 25 to life for his various high-speed high jinks, but the last scene of the movie is Brian, Mia and two other guys pulling a heist on the prison bus transporting him.

How fast? 🏎⏲️

• At one point in the race between Dom and Brian, Brian reaches 110 mph.
• A speedometer on a CGI car in the end credits shows 125 mph.
• Dom drives fast enough to eke under a gas tanker hurdling downhill. Exact speed unknown.
• Brian can run fast! He successfully chases down a criminal through downtown Los Angeles.

How furious? 🌡️

Dom is so possessed by grief-fury in the wake of Letty’s murder that he acquires super powers. These include:

1. Time travel. He is able to stand at the scene of the crime and flash back into the events of the murder.
2. Invulnerability to gunfire. He gets shot in the shoulder and doesn’t even flinch.
3. The ability to decline Gal Gadot’s sexual advances.

How bizarre 🤯

(obligatory video link)

• Brian is now a brunet.
• Dom wears Oxford suede shoes at the beach.
• This is what Letty’s funeral looked like:

It is literally what she would have wanted.

• The head FBI guy has an American flag behind his desk. That’s normal, but he also has mounted on the wall a framed close-up photo of an American flag.

There’s nothing artistic about it. Not an artistic rendering of a flag. Not any sort of historic or special flag. Just a photo of the Stars and Stripes that’s zoomed in and cropped so that you can’t even see all the stars and stripes.

What I learned today

1. NOS is not just go-fast-juice for cars, but for humans too. NOS Energy Drink was released in 2005, so this is the first movie in the franchise where the refreshing and revitalizing product could have been placed. And it was.

2. I should drink NOS Energy Drink, Corona and buy a Magellan GPS.

3. To be fast is to be invincible. Cops can’t get you. Trucks can’t smash you. Time can’t catch up to you. If you’re dead, Letty, it’s because you were too slow; the bullet was faster.

See you on Monday. Stay hydrated!

Standout quotes with no context

• “Complaints keep rolling in after your little downtown Olympics, O’Conner!”
• “He hit me first!”
  “This isn’t the Cub Scouts!”
• “Let this go before it’s too late.”
  “It’s already too late.”
• “A Toyota Hybrid?”
  “Hell, no.”
• “Papa Dwight wants you to take off your shoes.”
• “How my ass look, Chia Pet?”
  “Ghetto Smurf.”
• “Are you one of those boys who prefers cars to women?”
  “I’m one of those boys who appreciates a fine body regardless of the make.”
• “Sorry, car.”