Reviews: Fast and Furious 9,The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

A bizarre scene involving a Pontiac Fiero could be the most far-fetched vehicle modification in the series to date.

Fast & Furious 9 (M)
In cinemas
★★½

The Fast & Furious franchise, which has earned $US6bn ($7.9bn) and still has a lot of miles left on the odometer, is known for its unbelievable car chases and stunts. While computer-generated imagery and mock cars are used, so are real vehicles. A British insurance firm estimates almost 1500 cars have been wrecked so far.

There are fan websites listing the top 10 can-cars-do-this? moments from the series, but let’s just take two from Fast & Furious 7, directed by Australian filmmaker James Wan: cars parachuting out of a plane over Azerbaijan and cars leaping between the Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi.

Can this be topped in Fast & Furious 9, the 10th instalment (counting the 2019 spin-off Hobbs & Shaw)? You bet it can. The truly bizarre extended scene involves a Pontiac Fiero and F&F regulars Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Chris “Ludacris’’ Bridges). It could be directed by a young Stanley Kubrick and I think it’s the most far-fetched vehicle modification in the series to date. There is a F&F 10 on the drawing board, so there’s a challenge for the future.

This 145-minute movie starts in the past. It is directed by Justin Lin, his fifth time behind the F&F steering wheel. It opens in 1989 with Jack Toretto (JD Pardo) competing in a stock car race. His sons, Dom and Jakob, are part of his pit crew. There is a crash, perhaps deliberately caused, and Jack comes to grief.

We cut to the present and Dom (Vin Diesel) is living on a farm with his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and young son. He has been estranged from Jakob (John Cena, new to the series) since that tragic day on the racetrack.

So on one level this is a F&F origin story that explores how Dom became the man he is: criminal turned street racer turned special operations agent turned stay-at-home dad. Jakob has not been seen before.

There are flashbacks to the time after their father’s death, and the best performances in this movie are by Finn Cole (Michael in Peaky Blinders) and Kiwi actor Vinnie Bennett as the young Jakob and Dom respectively. There is a drag race between them, of course, but there are also moments of emotional depth that are absent from the present-day story.

In the present, Dom and Letty release the brakes on retirement and hook up with the rest of the gang to do another mission for black ops boss Mr Nobody (Kurt Russell). The Toretto sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), absent for a few films, also cruises in. It looks like the baddie is Jakob, who is in league with cyber terrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron). They plan to take control of the world’s weapons systems. Is Jakob the bad seed? The backstory, the best part of the film, will make us ponder that.

I saw this movie at its Sydney premiere and I am glad I did. Being in an audience of F&F fans plugged me into what they like about the movies.

They know the main characters so well the laughs come in advance of their jokes. There were also cheers for the brief appearances of people they were counting on seeing. I recognised Russell and Helen Mirren (as Queenie, mother of Dom’s old enemies), which perhaps shows my age, and did not recognise some others.

This is a franchise where the cars matter as much as the people. The script, by the director and Daniel Casey, does not waste time on conversations.

When Dom tells the crew anything involving his brother is his problem and his problem alone, they respond that his problem is their problem. That sorted, they jump into cars and gun the engines.

A lot of the chase scenes look like video games, but there are a few spectacular stunts, including one towards the end involving a huge truck that is milked for all it is worth.

The stars do make jokes about the F&F construct, with musings on how they are all still alive despite jumping cars over nuclear submarines and so on. Even so, taking the mickey out of yourself for making a silly movie cannot last forever, at least for this viewer.

-

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard (MA15+)

In cinemas

★★★

Ryan Reynolds is a white Canadian. Morgan Freeman is a black Oscar winner. Could they be father and son? It’s a question that perplexes Samuel L. Jackson in the funniest scene in The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard.

Freeman is a new character in this American MA15+ comedy-thriller franchise directed by the Australian filmmaker Patrick Hughes, who had a hit with the 2017 original The Hitman’s Bodyguard. He is Michael Bryce Snr, father to the bodyguard Michael Bryce (Reynolds). Jackson is the hitman, Darius Kincaid, and Salma Hayek is his con-woman wife, Sonia Kincaid.

The three leads each return from the first film.

When we meet Bryce Snr, “the greatest bodyguard who has ever lived”, according to his awed son, he is standing in shadow. When he comes into the light, the look on Samuel L. Jackson’s face is almost worth the price of a ticket.

He can’t quite ask the question he wants to ask and Reynolds, wonderfully deadpan as always, acknowledges there are remarkable differences between his dad and himself. Bryce Snr is an award-winning author, for example.

I laughed throughout this 100-minute movie. However, it’s one that will not be to everyone’s taste. There is a lot of violence, swearing and sexual innuendo. I would not take my mother to see it.

Samuel L. Jackson, Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek and Ryan Reynolds

The opening scene is a clever spoof of the Oscars. The awards being handed out at the black tie event are for bodyguards. It’s a real event, in the world of this movie. In this particular case, however, it’s a dream that awakens Bryce, who has lost his AAA rating after an “executive protection” job went wrong. He sees a therapist and agrees to go on a sabbatical: no bodyguarding, no guns.

There’s no movie in that, so in short order Kincaid, who Bryce protected in the first film, and his wife enter the fray. The Kincaids are still killing and conning while also trying to have a baby.

It’s hard to take one’s eyes off Hayek as, with various weapons to hand, she redefines the MeToo moment. Her character, in the background in the first movie, takes control of this one. As the title suggests, she hires Bryce as the bodyguard she does not need.

So Tom O’Connor, who created the characters and is the lead screenwriter, has turned his buddy duo into a threesome. It does make one wonder if there’ll be another apostrophe in the third film, should one happen. The Hitman’s Wife’s Toddler’s Bodyguard perhaps.

The plot isn’t important but in short there’s a Greek gangster, Aristotle Papadopoulous (a dressing-gowned Antonio Banderas), who wants to cyber-crush the rest of Europe so as to make Greece great again.

The Kincaids and Bryce, on a sabbatical from his sabbatical, are out to stop him. In a short but wonderful moment Richard E. Grant returns in his role as a cocaine snorter. The Goldie Hawn-Kurt Russell film Overboard becomes important.

That’s all you need to know. This is a well-acted, amusingly-scripted, poorly-plotted, violent, vulgar and profane bit of fun, for those who like that sort of thing.