Movie Review: Fast & Furious: Hobbs And Shaw

Producers- Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Chris Morgan, Hiram Garcia

Director- David Leitch

Star Cast- Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Idris Elba, Vanessa Kirby and Eiza Gonsalez

Genre- Action

Rating- ***

LEAVE-YOUR-BRAINS-BEHIND KIND OF AN ENTERTAINER

Jyothi Venkatesh

Ever since the hulk Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), a loyal agent of America's Diplomatic Security Service, and lawless outcast Shaw (Jason Statham), a former British military elite operative, first faced off in 2015’s Furious 7, they have swapped body blows as they’ve tried to take each other down, a la Amitabh Bachchan and Vinod Khanna in Manmohan Desai’s oeuvres. . But when cyber-genetically enhanced anarchist Brixton (Idris Elba) gains control of a bio-threat that could alter humanity forever — and bests a brilliant and fearless rogue MI6 agent (The Crown’s Vanessa Kirby), who just happens to be Shaw’s sister — these two sworn enemies join hands to bring down the only guy who might be more venemous than themselves.

Hobbs & Shaw, the baby rescuers from The Fate of the Furious, are recruited to track down the evil villain Brixton, who announces himself as ‘the bad guy’ when we first see him, and later as ‘black Superman’ when he fully displays the extent of his genetically modified powers. Brixton is after Shaw’s sister, Hattie, whose body houses a dangerous virus which can cause massive death and destruction.

The biggest problem of this pot boiler of a film is that the plot takes a backseat in favor of mindless entertainment and the content if any is tossed out of the windows. Though the chemistry of our heroes is intact, the director David Leitch, whose last outing was Deadpool 2 is in two minds about the actual kind of tone that he wants for his film and plays to the gallery. Confused about whether to embrace the cartoonish action that has been driving the Fast & Furious franchise of late, or to pitch Hobbs & Shaw more as a buddy comedy along the lines of the Jump Street movies, Leitch manages to succeed in doing neither.

The spectacular high octave action in the film is offset by family subplots and automatically reminds you of desi Karan Johar-style messaging about loving your family. The director combines fast action with witty and humorous dialogues but then it definitely is a leave-your-brains-behind at home kind of an entertainer, with chases sequences set in London, involving super cars and super bikes , like in a Rohit Shetty film.

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