Fast Five

Justin Lin’s 2011 film converts the series from racing into robbery: the crew set out to take a drug boss’s money in Rio. Very little of Rio was filmed in Rio. Production moved to Puerto Rico, where a tax incentive worth close to eleven million dollars decided the location. The structure gives its first hour almost entirely to recruitment. Every member receives an introduction, so the theft itself does not begin until the midpoint, and the driving is stacked into the back half. This is where the franchise pattern of an ensemble rather than a pair is laid down. The closing vault sequence keeps its weight visible. Six vaults were built; the one dragged through the streets was a four ton, four wheeled vehicle with its own driver, pulled on thirty foot cables by two stunt Chargers, and heat inside it forced stunt driver Henry Kingi into a temperature controlled suit. That vault destroyed more than two hundred cars during the shoot. The agent played by Dwayne Johnson was first written with Tommy Lee Jones in mind. Worth it if you care that the vault is on real cables and takes down whatever it hits. Avoid it if you expect actual Rio streets behind a story set in Rio, since the crowded scenes were staged in San Juan.