action thriller (and also essentially as a rip-off of Point Break). The 2001 original was intended as a vehicle
for Walker, who’d been asked what sort of film he’d like to star in. His response was that he wanted to do a
mash-up of Days of Thunder and Donnie Brasco. Meanwhile, director Rob Cohen had read a 1998 Vibe
magazine article called “Racer X” about illegal street racing in New York.
Everything fell into place. Walker plays a cop gone undercover to infiltrate a street racing criminal gang
only to turn native, Keanu-style, and strike up an uneasy bromance with Diesel’s Toretto. Sequels
repackaging the formula whooshed into view in 2003, 2006 and 2009. All those movies were fantastic. But
with 2011’s Fast Five, the series found an extra gear. Having taken the street racer plot as far as it could, The
Fast and the Furious revved things up further still, with no set piece considered to be too over the top. The
biggest set piece of all arguably was Dwayne Johnson, parachuting in as hard-bitten, Haka-loving lawman
Hobbs. Also soon onboard was Statham, giving it the full lock, stock and smoking stare-downs as renegade
lawman Shaw.
The Fast and the Furious had always been as lucrative as it was ludicrous. But now it was punching with the
big boys. Fast Five generated a global box office of $626m – more than the previous three entries combined.
The more absurd the movies, the greater the enthusiasm among audiences. Meanwhile, an Avengers-
worthy crew of side-kicks and B-listers was assembled around the main players. Game of Thrones’ Nathalie
Emmanuel came on aboard with 2015’s Furious 7. Gal Gadot, the future Wonder Woman, was introduced to
international audiences in 2009’s Fast & Furious. In 2017’s The Fate of the Furious (number eight), Charlize
Theron devoured the screen anaconda-style as cyber-terrorist Cipher. At no point were any of these actors
less than fantastic.
Critics were leery at first. The original – The Fast and the Furious – was written off as the entertainment
equivalent of a heap of spare parts. “A career-killing skid mark,” lamented Rolling Stone. As The Fast and the
Furious accelerated to box office ubiquity, however, the consensus began to change. “It hits that summer
sweet spot between the silly and the satisfying,” approved the Washington Post of Hobbs & Shaw this week.
“Complete nonsense but disarmingly pleasurable,” agreed The Independent.
Tragedy befell the franchise in 2013 when original star Paul Walker died in a (non-related) road accident
during the making of Furious 7. Vowing to complete the film in his honour the Fast “family” brought Brian’s
story to a moving conclusion. “It’s never goodbye,” Dom tells O’Conner as they prepare to drive off in
separate directions at the end. But it really was, making Furious 7 one of the most heart-shredding
blockbusters ever.
There has been on-set strife too. Hobbs and Shaw are presented as natural-born frenemies. But during the
shooting of The Fate of the Furious it emerged that Johnson had a real-life nemesis on the team. He went on
Instagram to accuse one of his male co-stars of being a “candy ass” lacking professionalism. “When you
watch this movie next April and it seems like I’m not acting in some of these scenes and my blood is legit
boiling – you’re right,” he wrote. No names were mentioned. The suspicion, however, was that he was