The Fast and the Furious + The Comedy

Two years ago I cautiously wrote the following after having smiled for two hours 

through Fast Five, the fifth installment in the Fast and Furious series, a series that 

has grossed nearly two billion dollars:

So, when I first heard rumblings about Fast Five, I was immediately like, 'OK, how many 

times can you top the top?' After all, Jack Sparrow is all but ruined at this point. But 

then... I saw Fast Five. I only needed about 4 minutes of DPL action to know that the top 

has been topped and immediately started to worry about the making of Super-Fast Six. 

They topped the topped and I loved every minute of it. I'm nervous about Vin driving 

cars that fly but I think I am ready for it.

Welp. Vin flew. Vin flies. Twice. 

I have so much fun watching these movies and I for real don't mean that to be a 

jab at the franchise. I mean, we may well have reached a level of absurdity that 

makes space for absurdity, on its own, to be cool. But so does Rambo and Rocky 

and well, any Stallone picture. And just as may be be the case with Rambo, I would 

imagine there are viewers that leave the theater saying things like, "Vin Diesel and 

The Rock are so cool!" They may even say it with a sense of wanting to be like 

them. But even these viewers have been relieved of having to believe that street 

racing is as cool in real life as it is in Fast and Furious. This whole thing, this whole 

cars and bad guys thing, is on to something and I'm trying to figure it out. My gut 

is saying that it's just nickel cowboy novellas with multi-million dollar budgets. 

There may be more though.

Here's what I know they pull-off:

1) Their values are so classic. Dom and Leddy and Mia and even Brian have a 

family first approach. In their value system you risk yourself for your brother 

because they would do the same for you. And even more than that, you do it 

because it's right. 

2) They pull from the Wizard of Oz and never relegate the fact that there really is 

"no place like home." (This is even more true in the 6th installment). 

3) For the good guys (sometimes mistaken by fellow good guys), the law is a 

social construction that is at the behest of an inner sense of right and wrong. 

Relatedly, it's never too late to do the right thing. It may be a twisted version of 

the Golden Rule insofar as their vigilanteism necessitates, often times brutal, 

justice-keeping, but the threads of "doing unto others" weave through F&F.

4) The Red, White, and Blue has a place--fast cars and capitalism. And the reason 

that all this works so well is because their values don't dismiss an old favorite, 

"Money can't buy happiness but money is still pretty awesome." 

5) One thing I like most, is their hospitality. You'd be hard pressed to find a more 

welcoming group of criminals. I'd join them if they invited. It's worth noting that 

we're not sure where these chiseled out value systems come from. Maybe it's the 

implied immigrant narrative (the 7th or 8th has to go this route--can you even 

picture early Dom?!). Regardless, there's no mistaking ($2,000,000,000 gross) that 

the world cheers a Fast and Furious version of moral/ethics philosophizing--for 

better or worse.

6) As absurd as the idea is of driving out of the front of a military plane as it 

crashes is, there is no denying that sticking to a script that has worked for a few 

thousand years is just wise: a) fun introduction to characters, b) party and race 

scene, c) things get messed up, d) fixing what's messed up starts out good enough, 

e) fixing what's messed up goes wrong, f) there's no way this is going to be 

resolved, g) things get blown up and resolved. 

7) The movies welcomes viewers like me. I don't like street racing. I'm not a car 

guy. I don't need tits and ass to like a movie. And yet they've still made space for 

me in the theater. 

8) Go big or go home.

9) Resurrections never get old.

Don't worry! There is a seventh one in the works. Here are some things to do 

next:

1) Someone needs to be related to someone else. Brian (Paul Walker) needs to 

be related to a bad guy. His biological father could surface and be the one that 

killed Dom's father. Brian would be forced to decide where his loyalty lies--with 

Dom or with blood. Better yet, what if it was his mother? She could be running a 

drug cartel that carries shipments from Russia to Alaska across the Bering Strait. 

She could run her shipments via submersible cars that drive on the ocean floor! 

Or:

We go back to the beginning, pre-Nos, when American muscle still ruled. We 

could see a toddler Vin Diesel, clad in toddler sleeveless tees--street racing lawn 

mowers through East L.A. Or better yet, racing go-carts through the Mexican- 

Caribbean resorts his mother labors in as a maid for the middle-class elite of 

suburban America. Either way, we would all benefit from some back story at this 

point. 

2) The Cars need to fly - not a lot - but they need to have a feature that allows 

them to take off, levitate for a second, and then be done with it.

3) We need a new actor, preferably an up and coming rapper, I think J. Cole 

could pull it off. The character would need some African roots and connections

with a father that is running Nigerian oil fields with an iron fist for B.P. which would 

take us back to London.

4) Someone is actually going to have to die, permanently.  

I think it is important, however, at this point in time to start thinking about a new 

description for what this is. Just because something uses film (digital or old 

school) does not mean it is a film. Maybe we should call some movies, like the 

Fast and the Furious, joints. Wait, that's been done. Either way, I just don't think 

it's cool to call Ingmar Bergman's work and Paul Walker's work by the same 

name. I would imagine some folks at MoMa or The Tate Modern would have 

something to say about this. I watched The Comedy pretty soon after having seen 

Fast and Furious to kind of experience this question about what is a film and 

what should not be a film

As much fun as I had watching people and cars and guns and houses and money 

glisten in F&F, I had a comparably rough time watching people and ideas and 

apartments and money dull itself into depression in The Comedy. What's glaring 

to me is that these movies exist alongside each other. Maybe The Comedy is a 

two hour protest of Fast and Furious? Maybe it is a comedian's attempt to lop off 

a chunk of Hollywood and let it drift out into the absurd realms it should land in 

more often (out where Paul Walker's mother is running cocaine shipments under 

the Bering Strait)? Maybe the whole thing is a narcissistic plea for MORE 

attention? Maybe there is some deep meaning and questions needing answers 

fusing through the languid, perpetual flipping off that makes up each scene? Maybe 

depravity is harked on, again and again, to remind us that it's better to laugh than 

it is to hate and destroy? Maybe The Comedy is about extravagance and it's 

deleterious effects on a post 9/11, somewhat lost and depraved generation? I 

could see how one could say it's just a movie and we shouldn't think about it too 

much. I could also see how one could say that it's all these things. 

However, I can't really think about it beyond the guys that made it. I think it's 

about them. Whatever they were trying to pull-off wasn't pulled off. They were 

missing any sort of point worth talking about. The only thing worth talking about 

is that these guys were applauding their own ability to make a movie and to make 

it about despicable things. I'm still not really sure. Either way, I really wanted to 

give this movie a chance. 

  

The Comedy features Tim Heidecker as a wandering, aging, wealthy hipster. 

Heidecker drifts through Brooklyn and Manhattan and just as I attempted to do 

as few constructive things as possible in high school, so too does Heidecker's 

character attempt to raise a 'fuck you' eyebrow to all that his privilege allows him 

to. His day-to-day life is a mockery of all that was once viewed as appropriate by 

our grand parents. That's about it, really. It's minimalist in that way but there could 

be more.

Maybe these guys are geniuses and in coming generations we'll look back on The 

Comedy and say thanks. It is different and it is brave in some ways. But it's mostly 

annoying. And I don't mean the lead character is annoying. He was annoying but 

that's not what I'm talking about. It's annoying that they felt they needed to make 

an annoying movie. If their goal was to make an annoying movie so that they 

could prod and poke at 'Society' or something like that, then they should have 

just not made the movie. The whole thing just seems kind of cliche in that way. It's 

like, dudes, we knew all of these things already. Amour, another movie (or film) 

about aging and extravagance is a legitimate attempt at talking about some darker 

themes that run through 'Society' as viewed by those that are aimlessly aging. And 

maybe I'm drawing a line here. I don't hate on movies that often and I'm still not 

sure I fully want to hate on this movie. I just feel that this whole endeavor was 

kind of childish. 

All that aside, Heidecker is a really good actor. He was convincing and made me 

feel for him. He can carry a scene and is able to keep one wanting to watch. I was 

really intrigued by the character. Maybe that's enough? Maybe being intrigued by a 

character and watching that character experience some life situations is enough 

for a movie? I'm not sure, I need to hear what some other folks have to say about 

it. I think this movie is good for discussion like Melancholia is good for discussion. 

It's certainly a fringe movie and fringe stuff is good for helping us decide where 

our boundaries are, are not, or shouldn't be at all. I already feel shitty about 

hating on this movie. I hate hating on movies. 

My final point, then, is that I don't want my negativity to be that big of a deal. I 

don't want to 'burn books' but I do want to call out narcissism and arrogance. My 

main negativity has to do with not wanting to watch this movie again. But if 

someone puts in the work to make a movie, and they definitely put in the work, 

then I am willing to acknowledge what someone has made. Even if what they've 

made is somewhat destructive. 

A good friend once taught me something that I try and live by, "Just because you 

can make a chair doesn't mean you should make the chair." This hushed truism 

works better if you say something like, "Just because you can make Wal-Mart 

doesn't mean you should make Wal-Mart" but the chair analogy is a little more 

dramatic. 

I think the problem with conservatism is that conservatism doesn't like 

to allow for the reality that some folks, often times many folks, are going to do 

things that we don't want them to do. Conservatism ironically exists to stomp 

out anything that isn't pretty, manicured and Country Club (it's ironic because 

wealth in capitalism hinges on the poorer buying products distributed by the 

wealthy). Whereas, liberalism, I think, is best for all of us because it doesn't hide 

from the shitty parts of life. A liberal reading of universal health care 

acknowledges that some people are going to take advantage of the system. A 

liberal approach to health care accepts that part of it and rightfully realizes that 

universal health care is still better than the greed and usury of insurance 

companies, attorneys and cronyism. It's better even if some take advantage of the 

system and benefit because of someone else's hard work. And that's the positive I 

can pull from this movie. It liberally does not hide from the shit and that makes it 

a liberal movie and I'm ok with liberal in this sense even if I'm left wondering if 

this movie should have been made in the first place (not wondering about F&F).