‘Furious 7’ DVD Review: Cars And Family Make For A High-Octane Film

The Fast & Furious franchise ends with a bang with the latest, and final film, Furious 7.

‘FURIOUS 7’ DVD REVIEW

The first Fast & Furious film was released in 2001. Fourteen years and seven films later, the Fast & Furious franchise comes to an end with its final film, Furious 7.

Furious 7 starts off with the lead villain, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), looking out the window of a tall, office building and speaking to someone off-camera. He swears to seek revenge on those who have hurt his brother, his family. As he turns his face to the camera and walks out of the office where he stood, we see the chaos he wreaked getting into the building. Bodies strewn about, bloody-faced and moaning; light fixtures dangling from the ceiling, lights flickering; desks broken and papers flung about here and there. Statham makes an excellent villain in this film.

“I’m not a villain,” Statham said in an interview, defending his character. “I’m putting two feet down and saying ‘who done this to my brother? And if you did you need to answer to me’. So, it’s just about setting things straight. It’s about standing up for your family.”

Two important themes have stuck with the franchise since the beginning – cars and family.

The cars in this film are characters themselves. As screenwriter Chris Morgan stated, “Cars are like samurai swords.” Each character in the film was given a car, or cars, that was catered to their personality, making them very special. For instance, one of Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) cars was built from scratch; a custom car that took over 100 hours to put together, just for Dom.

Fast & Furious has always displayed beautiful cars, but this time, the cars are doing more outstanding stunts than ever before. The film is packed with amazing car chase scenes, car stand-offs, and even a scene where cars are driven out the back of an airplane and parachuted down onto a dangerous, dusty road. And yes, they actually dropped real cars from an airplane for this film.

There are many great actions sequences in the film, including fights scenes between villain Deckard Shaw and Hobbs (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson), Shaw and Toretto, and an awesome fight between Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and the deadly Kara, played by UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion, Ronda Rousey.

This film is all about family. Shaw is seeking revenge for his brother while Toretto is fighting to keep his family safe from Shaw. The heroes and the villains aren’t so different as both sides are merely trying to protect their families, although Shaw may go about it a bit differently. The film is also about the Fast & Furious family; the actors that have been part of the franchise from the beginning, and the film is also meant to commemorate a dear, departed friend, Paul Walker, who died in a car accident in 2013.

Tyrese Gibson, who played Roman, one of Brian O’Connor’s (Paul Walker) childhood friends, and has been with the franchise since the second film, stated in an interview, “We all knew Paul, we were all close to him, and it was a responsibility that I carried with a great deed of pride, because it’s gonna give people an opportunity to still have fun while they’re thinking about what we’re all thinking about, which is our brother.”

Rodriguez has been with the franchise since the first film, and she feels that Furious 7 will give fans an opportunity to say goodbye, not only to the franchise, but to Walker. “You know, you get to say goodbye to somebody very, very special, and I think that it started with one intention, and it ended with another,” she said of the making of Furious 7. “I think all the fans are just gonna feel good that there’s a respect there, and I think that that’s what’s gonna be special about this one. All the fans get to say goodbye.”

Despite the thin plot, and sometimes shoddy dialogue, the film manages to retain suspense until the end, and is both exciting and heartwarming.

With the release of Furious 7 in 2015, Fast& Furious has become one of the most popular movie franchises of all time.