Film Review: Fast X is a pedal-to-the-metal action flick

"There’s no faulting the technical virtuosity and the scale of the ambition, that’s wishful thinking when set against the real appeal of the Fast movies."

Fast X: 

• Fast X 
• ★★★☆☆

It may not be the most carbon-neutral of film franchises, but there’s no denying that the Fast & Furious folks have delivered plenty thrills and spills since they debuted in 2001, in the process plundering “hundreds of millions of dollars and at least one nuclear submarine”.

The tenth in the series, Fast X (12A), opens with a trip down memory lane, as Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) loots a bank vault — as in, steals the physical vault —from a Brazilian drug kingpin.

The kingpin’s flamboyant son Dante (Jason Momoa) vows to take revenge, and while it’s been a decade in the making, he finally makes good on his threat when Dominic allows Roman (Tyrese Gibson) to lead a mission to Rome to prevent the heist of a quantum computing chip. 

Carnage ensues, in the wake of which Dominic and his extended family and friends —including Tej (Ludacris), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and Jakob (John Cena) — find themselves running for their lives. 

Or driving for their lives, rather, in a variety of souped-up cars that are pushed to their mechanical limits in a series of chases and escapes that scoff at the laws of physics.

The poster for Fast X

There’s no faulting the technical virtuosity and the scale of the ambition, and while a little less might have resulted in considerably more, and especially when talent like Brie Larson and Charlize Theron spend too much time hanging about in the wings, that’s wishful thinking when set against the real appeal of the Fast movies. 

Louis Leterrier directs in the only way he knows how — tyres screeching, pedal to the metal — and keeps the four-wheeled stars centre stage, delivering a super-charged action flick that roars along for the entirety of its 160 minutes.

(cinema release)