Fast & Furious 6: Sincerity slows it down

This fancy driving franchise has reached the point where it’s virtually impossible to up the ante. The previous flick, 2011’s Fast Five, featured a scene in which the guys dragged a vault through town behind their souped-up rides. Not easy to outdo something like that. It was a preposterous scene and spoke to the way the movie has moved beyond the realms of reality. Fast & Furious 6 continues down that path and presents scenes so ludicrous, they simply defy logic.

Fast & Furious 6 picks up where the previous film left off. Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) is living easy off the money he made from the bank heist we saw in Fast Five and his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) has shacked up with Brian (Paul Walker) and given birth to their son Jack. Secret Service man Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) tracks them down and extends an olive branch with the hopes that they’ll help him capture former British officer Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), who’s been stealing military technology. Hobbs has a picture of Dom’s ex, Letty (Michele Rodriguez), who was previously presumed dead, as the bait to get him to help track Shaw. The set-up is rather flimsy, but it does enable Dom to join the good guys for once.

Of course, from this point forward, the film goes down a predictable path that involves a number of high-speed chase scenes (one of which involves a tank). The razor sharp dialogue and quick quips from Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Chris Bridges) keep the movie entertaining. But director Justin Lin — he’s the man behind the previous two films in the franchise — tries too hard to turn the movie into something more than just an action flick. He plays up Dom’s commitment to his “family” with a series of platitudes that contrasts his motive with those of the cold-hearted Shaw. It’s unnecessary character development that extends the movie to a bloated 130 minutes.