Can I Put Wider Wheels on My Car

You'd have to be a zombie to not have your adrenaline pumping through each one of those drag races and car chases in the Fast & Furious franchise.

When the going gets tough, we turn to our favourite guilty pleasures. But when entertainment is concerned, is there even any guilt to what gives one pleasure? In our new series Pleasure Without Guilt, we look at pop offerings that have been dissed by the culture police but continue to endure as beacons of unadulterated pleasure.

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Disclaimers: I don't drive. I can't tell a Honda from a BMW. And I hate going above the average speed of an auto-rickshaw.

I love flying cars.

I'm not talking about Harry Potter and Ron Weasly trying to get to Hogwarts because they missed the train. I'm talking of a different kind of magic – slick and shiny machines that look they're made of satin; wheels that seem to hover off the road; shiny dials that look less like odometers but more like they're recording your heartbeats; and gearshifts that could launch you into orbit. It might sound like I'm talking of spaceships at this point but hey, when that car flew from Skyscraper A to Skyscraper B in Furious 7 (2015), it was a lot like watching Star Wars. Except with way, way more swagger, panache, verve, coolth, <fill in your favourite shady adjective>.

When the first instalment of the Fast & Furious franchise dropped in 2001, it was 'leave-your-brains-at-home' kind of fare that was highly entertaining. Inspired by a magazine article about illegal street racing in Queens, New York, the film was targeted at petrol-heads and car enthusiasts, but a well-executed action film often finds a larger audience.

Critics called out the absence of logic, the terrible hamming, the cheesy dialogue, and the complete lack of a plausible story or plot. But who cares, right? You'd have to be a zombie to not have your adrenaline pumping through each one of those drag races and car chases. Everything else was respite from the furiously paced action, and mostly good for laughs. Your chief protagonist spews nonsense like "I live my life a quarter-mile at a time. Nothing else... For those 10 seconds or less, I'm free." His love interest spends most of the film sneering at people and trash talking. Rapper Ja Rule makes an appearance as a street racer who talks about himself in the third person, "Edwin happens to know a few things, and one of the things Edwin knows is it's not how you stand by your car, it's how you race your car." It was obvious – these guys were already bigger, better, and badder than Chuck Norris.

What I didn't know back then was that I'd still be waxing eloquent about these characters two whole decades later. The Age of the Franchise was still years away, and you can't blame people for thinking Fast & Furious was a fluke one-off. Announcing a sequel just seemed like producers trying their luck. Even leading man Vin Diesel ditched the film to go and try his hand at being a stuntman-turned-spy in xXx (2002) because that probably looked more likely to become a franchise. But the sequel got made, and they called it 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003); it's almost like they did go to Chuck Norris to name their film. The film made more money than the first one. Go figure. And they've been nothing but consistent since, dropping one instalment every two to three years.

There's only so much you can pimp your ride though. So the fifth instalment – Fast Five (2011) – introduces "the heist" to its storyline, setting the tone for future films in the franchise. An attempt at a plot, however, meant potential plot holes. The film opens with Brian (Paul Walker) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) breaking Dom (Vin Diesel) out of the bus that's transporting him to prison. They organise a bus crash where the bus does multiple flips so as to incapacitate the driver and police officers. All of this happens, but none of the prisoners get affected, including Dom. Also, Dom is the only one who escapes as per the news reports that follow, because it's absolutely normal behaviour for the other prisoners to hang around and be taken back. You can't really be blamed for asking all these questions, especially when it's the opening sequence of a film but a decade into the franchise, fans knew what to expect and nobody was complaining. To this day, the film remains the fan favourite and again, it's the utter lack of logic coupled with slick action and great visuals that works for this franchise.

That's all on the surface though. Those like me who love these films connect on a deeper level, which is what brings us back time and again. For many, it's the strong sense of family that runs through each of these films.

The individual character arcs might be some of the worst to have come out of Hollywood, but the relationships are nothing short of brilliant.

You watch a bunch of friends become way, way more than family, and you're a part of every step of that journey. And these bonds go beyond the customary 'cop-flick-bro-bonding,' which is what gives it wider appeal. While the women in the film are constantly objectified, and have to be 'rescued' by their male counterparts, they also kick serious ass, and are as much a part of the family as anyone else. When you watch Brian trying to worm himself into Dom's family, you can almost feel yourself in his shoes, willing yourself to be let into something much bigger, something warm and fuzzy. You want to belong. Dom and Brian driving down forking roads with Wiz Khalifa singing 'See You Again' in Furious 7 had people shamelessly sobbing in theatres. And if that didn't do it, the Paul Walker tribute at the end of the film definitely did.

While it is this deeper connection that brings old fans like me back to theatres, the franchise attracts new fans with every film it drops. The seventh and eighth editions crossed the billion-dollar-mark in worldwide collections. Even the latest film, F9: The Fast Saga (2021) raked in over $700 million. In the middle of a pandemic.

(from left) Dom (Vin Diesel) and Jakob (John Cena) in F9, directed by Justin Lin.

It's difficult these days to find a film that is an out-and-out entertainer. That's what this franchise has achieved in spades, just by keeping it simple: great stunts, uncomplicated storylines, and a general feeling of cheer and familiarity are what make up the core. And there are days when I want familiar, I crave familiar. Days when I wrap myself in an old favourite blanket, curl up on the couch, and eat chilli cheese toast. Those are the days I go back to these films.

And did I mention I love flying cars?

Author of Parveen Babi: A Life, Karishma Upadhyay has been writing about movies and movie stars for almost two decades. On Twitter, she goes by @karishmau.

Read more from the Pleasure Without Guilt series here.

Can I Put Wider Wheels on My Car

Source: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/hot-wheels-shiny-dials-gearshifts-that-could-launch-you-into-orbits-why-i-cant-put-a-break-on-my-love-for-fast-furious-10105801.html

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