At roughly two decades old, The Fast and Furious franchise continues to fascinate Indians despite its ludicrousness. It has to do with fantasy as much as it possibly has to with the frustration of everyday commutes. So it rolled in again this week (May 18, 2023), or should I say, ‘vroomed’ its way into theatres - the silliest yet hard-nosed of franchises that makes grown men sit up inside their exoskeletons as their brains depart from the orifice of their combined masculinity, as if pumped with nitrous oxide.
It’s been roughly 20 years since a plucky but stylish little film, featuring some really poor acting and writing, waded through the imagination of a generation, purely on its oomph. Paul Walker and Vin Diesel starred in that formative first film and while the tragic death of the former, at one point threatened to derail a curiously dogged franchise, The Fast and Furious films have become a behemoth in themselves. In India, their popularity stems from a heady mix of material aspiration and mulish masculinity. It makes sense, because while we are on our way to becoming fast, furious kind of runs in the veins.
What makes a franchise stick for 10 films - the finale of which is in three parts - each more brainless than the last? Roughly a decade ago, I caught the fifth instalment in a single-screen theatre in Hyderabad. It was impossible to get tickets. People stood in the aisles, hooted at every swoosh of a ridiculously expensive vehicle grazing past the flawless body of another, or at each cumbersome lift of Diesel’s imperceptible eye-brow. It was mayhem all the time, with stunts so ridiculous they’d make Ramanand Sagar’s head spin and acting so flat you could make the cars speak and the films would still lose none of the gaudy prestige.
So what has made this franchise last? Well, firstly the films started out quite well, caught the imagination of disillusioned millennials who probably couldn’t afford cars, or even bicycles for that matter, but were running their own little races in life still. Instantly, the franchise bloomed into something audacious and uncontrolled. The second film felt incontrovertibly sloppy. The third, a curious but fascinating experiment in re-identifying new cultural pastures, suggested possibilities. Tokyo Drift might have had its flaws, including an insufferable protagonist, but it remains the franchise’s most interesting experiment in cultural inquiry to this date. From the fourth film onwards, it has been Toretto (Diesel) and his ‘family’ of outlaws playing imprudent cat-and mouse-games with the law and the lawless alike. At this point Toretto’s family tree resembles an Indian joint family, capable of unearthing fathers, brothers, cousins and former colleagues with episodic numbness.
The franchise’s popularity in the Indian context can probably be explained by what it offers with candour and clarity (aside from that obvious Deepika Padukone role). We would love better cars, wide roads and the capacity to stream past bystanders and yet we are hopelessly stuck in jams, perennially staring the behinds of vehicles moving far slower than ours. Road rage incidents are so commonplace you’d have to wonder how Torreto might pull off a basic get-to-meeting-at-9 kind of task in Delhi-NCR, or show up for an awards show in Mumbai, as opposed to the usual of robbing banks or hidden treasures. Speed is a fantasy we have nurtured for years and the sight of bullish men commanding it alongside the love of ferocious, equally attractive women is every bit the alien planet we are yearning to inhabit. It’s what makes our eyes gleam, even if with a sprinkling of masochistic toxicity. Cars kill, in stunning numbers in this country, and yet the fantasy is to go faster and bolder than anyone else ever has.
Indians generally don’t nurture the patience for the voguish charms of grace. People like to drive like they would on video games at home. They bring their fighting faces to the highway, and they look the most furious when they are the least speedy of all. It’s a reality we will probably never escape. The faster our cars get, the more we buy them, the less the space to actually revv them at those ear-splitting speeds. Instead, we’d probably be honking horns, spitting curses at the oppressiveness of it all. No wonder, then that those who break rules feel like spiritual saviours of souls longing for one speedy day behind the steering wheel of an immodest machine. Cars represent everything from status, masculinity and even the sign of respect. No wonder those red hot nitrous oxide buttons feel like they are taped to male egos.
This latest Fast and Furious film features yet another workout enthusiast (previously Jason Statham, The Rock and John Cena), Jason Momoa, as a cocky adversary. Staring him in the face will be Toretto and his humble flock of suicidal stewards, a nauseatingly self-aware family that loves to talk about, well, family. It’s more Ekta Kapoor than even Kapoor could fit into a two-hour soiree with droning engines and audaciously bizarre action sequences. A sequence from this latest one shows Toretto bring down two helicopters with a pull of the gear shift, like he is pulling a sledgehammer. It’s preposterous, inane even, and yet, it will possibly receive the loudest cheer at the theatres. For it breaks the stifling crawl of everyday life, the very relevance of the laws of physics. And that perhaps is the point here. It’s rage, exhibited as creative, wishful lunacy. And it just about works if you leave your mind at home. Which is, come to think of it, the way most people drive in this country anyway.
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