Fast Culture: A Furious Lesson in Familia and Loyalty

 

For the last 2+ decades, the Fast and the Furious franchise has been breaking barriers and changing what we now know as a blockbuster film. 10 movies in and the franchise is only getting better. The newly released Fast X not only brings both Gal Gadot and Dwayne Johnson to the franchise (mild spoiler alert) but also brings in new blood including Brie Larson, Pete Davidson, Alan Ritchson, Daniela Melchior, and Oscar Winner Rita Moreno. Adding new blood to every movie may seem tiring to some but, in my opinion, it adds a freshness to the franchise and stops it from turning into a franchise that goes stale after a while. The franchise's moral is the idea of "Familia" which is Spanish for Family. The Torretto family all stick together and more times than not, the new blood adds something new to what makes someone close to the Torretto family. Vin Diesel and the rest of the producers behind the franchise are smart when it comes to mapping out the canon of the franchise. What draws fans the most to Fast X is the introduction of Jason Momoa as Dante Reyes who is the son of Hernan Reyes(played by Joaquim de Almeida) a drug lord who is the foil for Vin Diesel's Dominic Torretto and the rest of the crew in Fast Five. What makes this familial connection so interesting is the fact that Dom and the crew did not know at first that Reyes had a son and introducing the son now adds stakes. Hernan Reyes was killed at the end of Fast Five by DSS agent Luke Hobbs(played by Dwayne Johnson) after Reyes had Hobbs' whole unit minus Elena Neves(played by Elsa Pataky, the wife of Marvel star Chris Hemsworth), a police officer in Rio, murdered. 

Spoiler alert for the ending of Fast X. Agent Aimes(played by Alan Ritchson), who works alongside Little Nobody (played by Scott Eastwood) and Tess(played by Brie Larson) under the shadowy government agent only referred to as "Mr. Nobody"(played by Kurt Russell) in the organization "The Agency" is revealed to be a double agent working with Dante to get revenge on Dom and his crew. Later during the credits, Dante contacts DSS agent Hobbs targeting him for killing his father. What this could lead to is an epic family war and a confrontation that fans have been waiting for for 5 movies which add up to 12 years. One character that fans want to interact with DSS agent Hobbs is Jakub Torretto, who is played by former wrestler John Cena and is the brother of Dom. John Cena and Dwayne Johnson have never worked with each other outside of the WWE and if Cena is brought back for the 11th film, then things will be interesting. There is one wrench in that plan, however. Jakub is presumably killed towards the end of Fast X, making this idea probably null and void. While characters are often brought back from the dead in the Fast universe, this death is probably permanent. That being said, the final two films in this franchise have a lot to prove, especially if the franchise is going to go out strong.