Not a Review: Fast and Furious 7

Blackness. A familiar, haunting tune from a children’s music box plays. There’s a low rumbling sound of a car engine idling in the distance.

White light floods in. Writer Chris Morgan appears in close up, facing his laptop. As his hands approach the keyboard in slow motion the sound of the car increases exponentially. He hits the first key and the camera zooms out to reveal he’s sitting shotgun in a black Lamborghini Murciaglo.

Next to him is the driver, a familiar oriental face looking sadly at the tiny music box on the dashboard. He suddenly throws out the box, stamps his foot on the accelerator with full force, and as the car screams away Morgan begins writing the script of Furious 7.

Cue in blaring, boisterous rap music as the backdrop to various flashy angles of the car zooming like a bullet through a Californian desert.

‘We need to make this one special’, Morgan’s deep and throaty voiceover booms, as the car dangerously swerves left. Cut to the men inside the car, at full Zen despite the insane speed of the car.

‘You did well in the preceding trilogy’, the mysterious driver says. ‘We sure did’, Morgan replies, ‘Justin Lin had the balls to change the racing format of the films to a heist game’. The driver nods in approval and curtly adds, ‘I can take this to the next level’.

The Lamborghini approaches a stream that magically seems to exist in the middle of a desert. Around the stream are young nubile girls prancing around aimlessly. Morgan begins writing the first scene of the film – ‘It has to be a race of some sort’, he says, as the car runs through the stream, splashing a few of the nubile girls much to their delight. The driver shifts gear.

‘Enough racing and heists, make this one a revenge tale’, the driver says.

‘That sounds good,’ Morgan replies, ‘but which of the six antagonists from the previous films would still matter? They were all as cookie cutter as they come.’

‘The one with the British accent. We need to appeal to a wider audience than the great kingdom of America. Give that guy...’

‘… a brother. Right on’. Morgan finishes the backstory of this new character, Deckard Shaw, the brother of the random British guy in the previous movie. ‘Whom do we know who kicks a lot of ass and can look good while driving cars like a maniac’?

The camera zooms slowly on the driver, who quietly responds ‘You know who’.

Cut to the driver frenetically shifting gears and Morgan sending an email to Jason Statham. The car is now careening through the snakelike highway. A metropolis is seen on the horizon.

Morgan looks contemplative. He’s unsure of the plot structure and character arcs of the film.

‘Are you unsure of the plot structure and character arcs of the film?’, the driver asks.

‘Yes, I am unsure of the plot structure and character arcs of the film’, Morgan replies.

‘Mix it up this time’, the driver says, ‘make the characters say everything they’re doing. Like “I am back guys”, when someone who has disappeared comes back. Or “I am a great shooter”, when someone does some great shooting’.

The car does a screaming sideways drift as the desert sand whirls around like a tornado and Morgan attacks his keyboard.

A couple of song montages and flashy cuts later the car enters a Middle Eastern metropolis. ‘Let’s pick the stunts bro’, Morgan says.

‘You did cars and you did planes and you did choppers’, the driver replies, ‘this time lets do cars diving from a plane like a Halo Jump, and cars smashing into choppers’.

‘Like in Die Hard 4?’

‘Yeah, but furiously’. The Lamborghini smashes into a shopping mall, breaking everything in sight, exits back on to the road without a single scratch and comes to a standstill. A bunch of girls in ridiculously skimpy skirts flock over to observe the magnificence of the car and its occupants.  

‘Tom Cruise hung from the Burj Khalifa, we should do better than that’.

‘We’ll freaking triplicate the Khalifa and we’ll drive the freaking cars through the fiftieth freaking floors of the freaking Khalifa’.

The car leaps into motion as the blast from the exhaust blows away the skimpy skirts, displaying designer underwear. The music amps up, Morgan and the driver slowly turn towards each other. Even as the car speeds up neither of them look at the road, they just look at each other, smiling and nodding. They know they have to bring back every single character from the previous films. They know they have to introduce a Nick Fury type person who teams them all up. They know they have a blockbuster on their hands.

‘This is our Avengers’, they say in union, as the Lamborghini at full speed leaps off a cliff, unspools a parachute, and floats away into the sunset.

A fade out later, two shadowy figures approach the cliff, watching the car going away from them. The camera pans to reveals their faces - a creepy white-faced puppet in a black suit on a tricycle, and a ghostly woman with a rope around her neck. Suddenly someone claps twice and we black out.

(First published in Firstpost)