Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
This week, on The Best Movies in the History of Everything:
We’re celebrating our 2nd anniversary with what might just be the greatest bad movie we’ve ever covered. That’s right — after Fast and Furious got us started two years ago, and Fast Five blew our minds at our 1-year anniversary, we’re closing out Justin Lin’s perfect trilogy with Fast and Furious 6 (or as it’s known in the actual movie: Furious 6).
This is peak Fast and Furious. A tank on a highway. The longest runway in cinema history. Vin Diesel catching Letty in mid-air. Luke Evans being absolutely perfect as Owen Shaw. Gina Carano with a Han Solo gun. Shea Whigham getting his nose broken again. And practical stunts that put modern CGI-fests to shame.
We learned that Letty can’t remember anything (but knows one thing about herself). That Owen Shaw has a code, and it’s precision. That the Rock is very, very shiny. That this might actually be better than Fast Five. And that after watching the credits roll, Greg literally shed a tear.
Justin Lin delivers a masterclass in action filmmaking — with seven different vignettes happening simultaneously during that insane plane sequence, all perfectly edited together by a team that deserved Oscar nominations. The direction is flawless, the stakes feel real (they actually lose battles!), and somehow a movie about stealing a component for a weapon that can blind a country’s military for a day makes perfect emotional sense.
Is this the high watermark for the franchise? Absolutely. Is it borderline ridiculous? Yes. Is it objectively terrible but undeniably pleasurable? Without question. Did Greg think to himself an hour in, “this might be the best movie I’ve ever seen in my life”? He’s not joking.
This three-movie run (Fast and Furious → Fast Five → Furious 6) is some of the best action movie storytelling you’ll ever see, and we’re honored to cap off two years of Great Bad Movies with the conversation that needed to happen about this film.
Also: Drinking Games (tire squeals, glass breaks, and Vin Diesel’s lip flare), Very Important Questions, Joe’s Real Back of the Box, what album this movie is, and why both of us think this might be the greatest bad movie ever made.
Joe’s Back of the Box
The gang is back and furious! Now hired by Hobbs (The Rock) to chase down a deadly crew trying to steal the last component of a weapon which can blind an entire country’s military. But have they met their match with an elite team of bad guys hell-bent on selling their weapon to the highest bidder? Can they succeed with their backs against the wall? Buckle up because you are in for the ride of your life.
The REAL Back of the Box
This movie marks the high watermark for the franchise. I can hear you now talking about the seventh movie — it’s good, but also marks the turn into CGI-heavy stunts. And to be honest, if Paul Walker does not die while making the movie, would it be as popular as it is? So enjoy this movie with its practical stunts, filmed with real car crashes and surprises and the longest runway in history. The last action sequence is an incredible feat of editing, with upwards of seven different vignettes coordinated together as the team tries to stop a plane from taking off. It is the perfect finale for the movie, punctuated by Vin Diesel jumping a car through an exploding plane.
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: Joe. In the movie we watched this week, we learned that Jason Statham, Deckard Shaw in The Fast and Furious verse told his brother Owen Shaw that every man needs to have a code. Joe Tucker. To celebrate our second anniversary, it’s finally time for me to ask you what? What is your code?
Joe: I would love to say that I have as cool a code as either Owen’s, or, Dominic Toretto, but I don’t. I think my my code these days is is as boring as they get. It might just keep swimming as Dory says. I think that’s probably my my code. It’s to go into the Pixar world. What about you, Greg?
Joe: What’s the what’s your code?
Greg: I mean, obviously it’s not precision.
Joe: Which is Evans, which is Owen Shaw’s.
Greg: It could be family, but I think my code is a simple one. My code is, It’s probably time for some coffee.
Joe: I love that code. I’m always up for some coffee, so.
Greg: It’s good for the hangout. It keeps you going. It helps you get through it. It helps you keep swimming.
Joe: I remember when we lived together, you would make coffee at all hours.
Greg: That’s weird. That doesn’t sound like me.
Joe: Yeah. Not you. At all. I remember there was, on the advice of R.E.M. album Monster. There’s a line, “put pepper in my coffee,” and you tried it. At one time, I.
Joe: I will say, not my favorite kind of coffee.
Greg: I remember it kind of floating on the top. Maybe we need to celebrate different kinds of pepper that we put in our coffee.
Joe: Yeah. Or lean heavily into, you know, the filter or something like that.
Greg: Oh, that’s interesting. Let’s do that. Do you ever put spices in your coffee?
Joe: Sometimes I’ve done like I’ve done cinnamon and some other stuff.
Greg: Yeah. Really good in the grounds. Not as good in the coffee for me.
Joe: Yeah a great.
Greg: Oh my gosh I’m doing this tomorrow. I’m going to, I’m going to put right here what it tasted like when I put pepper in the grounds of my coffee. Okay.
Joe: But I can’t wait.
Greg: It was amazing. All right. Oh, Vin Diesel, what are you doing here?
Vin Diesel: You got the best crew in the world standing right in front of you. Give them a reason to stay.
Greg: All right? We’ll do our best show. Let’s get to the show.
Joe: Let’s do it.
Vin Diesel: It wasn’t that hard to find you. Toretto wasn’t hiding our target’s own shot.
Joe: Former spec ops soldier for years have been running jobs in Europe, but it’s the most recent job that graduated them to a whole new level. And the Letty we once knew God, you don’t turn.
Clip: Your back on Ethan when they do. Guys.
Joe: They got a tank.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: The year is 2013, and one of our favorite directors, Justin Lin, steps up to the plate with writer Chris Morgan to make a movie called Fast and Furious six, his fourth Fast and Furious movie in a row. We are talking about Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, Luke Evans oh my gosh, this goes forever.
Greg: Elsa Pataky, Gina Carano.
Joe: We need to throw in Shea Whigham, Shea Whigham three movies in a row where Shea Whigham.
Greg: Oh my gosh, how long can we keep this going? This is the greatest three episode run in our history, and we are landing on our second anniversary of the show. Happy anniversary, Joe.
Joe: Yeah. Thank you. Happy anniversary. We made it two years. Who would have thought?
Greg: Our second episode. Not technically, exactly two years ago, but our second episode was Fast and Furious, which is the fourth movie. Our first anniversary was Fast Five, which really cleaned up at the Golden Helicopter Awards show at the end of the year. Yeah, and today we’re talking about Fast and Furious six. Joe, to celebrate our second anniversary.
Greg: What makes Fast and Furious six a great bad movie?
Joe: This is the ultimate way to finish a series. And I’m gonna just. We’ll just have to pretend that the seven, eight, nine, ten, ten, part two don’t exist. Wow. This three movie run is some of the best action movie raising the stakes you’ll ever see.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: There are proper real life stunts in this. I’m such a sucker for real explosions. Real car crashes. This just ups the ante. It is almost too fast five level for me of how much I love this movie. Every time I come back to it it feels a little like an afterthought just because of how much I love fast five.
Joe: And I still think it is the, it is the best great bad movie out there. Almost bar none. But this movie is such a great sequel and a great way to sequence them from four to 5 to 6. Every time I watch it, I’m surprised at how much I am happy to see the characters coming back together, getting the gang back together.
Joe: Yeah, the ridiculous plot points of of how they, they get their and basically the last 45 minutes of this movie are one amazing action scene with like a breath in between a perfect three movie run to me. Yeah, that is perfect.
Greg: Yeah, only rivaled by Mission Impossible in my mind. Yeah. And that’s fighting where it’s because you don’t have Mission Impossible four. So we will get to Mission Impossible for some.
Joe: Yeah, I do think we need to have the conversation that needs to be had around it, though, to be fair.
Greg: I mean, the internet is clamoring for it, obviously.
Joe: Obviously, I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this movie. Yeah.
Greg: Me either.
Joe: More than I probably should admit to.
Greg: Yeah, there’s no shame here.
Joe: We’re in a safe space. Yeah.
Greg: We have a show based on movies like this.
Joe: Yeah, for a movie like this? Basically. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But what what are your thoughts? What? What do you think makes Fast and Furious six a great movie or a great bad movie?
Greg: Okay, I saw this movie through fresh eyes this week. There are many things I need to say before I start talking about this.
Joe: Okay. Awesome. Bring it.
Greg: On. First of all, this movie came out in 2013.
Joe: That’s crazy.
Greg: Which is a really long time ago.
Joe:
Greg: I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this movie, but it is not as much as fast five, which I have declared basically the best bad movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, absolutely. A blueprint for why we do this show and why we’re friends basically.
Joe: Yep. Yeah.
Greg: And why we came back together as friends after not seeing each other for so long to make this show. In the last 13 years, a lot of things have changed in the world, and I feel like it makes me a little bit nostalgic for 2013, which is not a year I ever thought I would be nostalgic for.
Greg: But while I was watching Fast and Furious six, I was like, wow, this movie came out a long time ago, and, I kind of miss those days. I think part of those days that I miss are when new, fast and Furious movies came out that Justin Lin was directing, and it hadn’t quite jumped the shark yet.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And there’s such a bittersweet thing about Fast Furious six and that is that, you know, Paul Walker was still alive throughout the whole movie. We’ll get to that. Okay. The second thing is, I’m a grown up Joe. I’m a grown person.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Okay. That’s another thing I wanted to say.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: That is all prelude to the fact that about an hour into this movie, as I was watching it the other night, I thought to myself, this might be the best movie I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’m not joking. This might be a movie that is 1,000,000,000% made for Greg Allen Arts.
Joe: I had a very similar reaction when I watched it. For me, it happens every single time the tank comes out. Yes. On the hundred percent amazing car chase on the freeway.
Greg: Incredible.
Joe: Where you’re just how the set up and how they got don’t even question it. It’s no all of a sudden there’s a tank and they’re trying to stop a tank. And that’s all you need to know. Yeah. And then I still have the wonder that I have. The first time I saw it when I was like, oh, what is happening?
Greg: I really don’t know how to put this in the words other than here is my take on Fast and Furious six. By the way, can we sidebar real quick? We’re early on in this episode, but I already need a sidebar allowed. The whole time this movie was being made, it was called furious six. Did you know that?
Joe: Yeah, I didn’t know that. I think I even there were even some like early, early trailers around that because that’s what it is in my head.
Greg: And that’s what it is. When in the movie, the title of the movie is furious six, but all of the marketing for it was Fast and Furious six, but these were meant to be two movies fast five, furious six. That’s what Justin Lin was up to. And marketing balked at it. And just said, we can’t. We have such a big property going on here, we can’t just call it furious six.
Greg: No one’s going to know what we’re talking about.
Joe:
Greg: Of course that’s ridiculous, because when furious seven came out, it was called furious seven, so I don’t know what the deal was there. Justin Lin said, well, can we have the title card in the movie B furious six? And they said, yeah. So just to make the naming convention of this series even more confusing. Yeah, I would like to call this movie furious six.
Greg: And as we talk about it, because that’s how my man Justin Lin wanted to call it. Okay. So I feel this week and I think it’s backed up by logic, I will try to make my case okay. I think this movie is better than fast five.
Joe: I think. Wow I think you’re right.
Greg: Obviously fast five walked so this movie could run. Like there isn’t a furious six without a fast five.
Joe: So yeah.
Greg: You cannot separate them. But I think the weakest points of Fast five are weaker than the weakest points of furious six. I know this is ridiculous, but this week I was like, I can’t think of why this isn’t better than fast five right now. I have to tell you this. When the credits rolled in this movie, I got the most extended full body chills.
Greg: And then I started laughing because I was like, what is happening to me right now? This is such a dumb movie, but it also sparks so much joy. Marie Kondo style for me. And then there’s a mid-credits scene. And when the mid-credits scene ended and it went back to the credits, it literally shed a tear. Joe Tucker, what is happening to me?
Greg: This is the best big dumb movie. Oh my God, Justin Lin just completely crushed it.
Joe: I agree, I’m trying to pinpoint. I think where Fast Five holds nostalgia for me is the first time I saw it.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And you have the.
Joe: And it was like, oh, they they can make a movie like this. That was kind of the thought. And yeah, it was so ridiculous. And it was so unexpected. Yeah, yeah. That I had a moment where I had to tell myself to suspend disbelief, where they’re they’re transporting the safe at the end. I mean, I’m like, there’s no way that I’m like, you’re watching a movie.
Joe: Called fast Five. Yeah. And it’s the most ridiculous thing. Just enjoyed the spectacle and what I think six does so well is it takes exactly, as you say, fast five Walk So Furious six can run.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And I had a similar thought and I wasn’t quite ready to. I was like, I felt was the vulnerable place to be, Greg to to admit and fast Six might be better than fast seven or fast five, I mean.
Greg: So it’s not as big of a jump up as Tokyo Drift to Fast and Furious to Fast five. I mean, that that trajectory is just ridiculous. It’s amazing. And so this is I remember when this movie came out, I thought, well, it’s it’s not as big of a jump as fast five was too fast for.
Joe:
Greg: And these are things that I spent a lot of my time.
Joe: Thinking about for some reason. Because you’re a gentleman and you have good taste. That’s absolutely, absolutely.
Greg: There’s another aspect to this. And that is, when they would finish making one of these movies, they would then have a camp where they invited huge pop stars to, I think, watch scenes from the movie and then go off and write songs to pitch, to be in the movie. And so in this movie, we have Usher and Ludacris on a song.
Greg: We have two Chainz. I listen to the soundtrack. When it came out, I was commuting maybe 45 minutes both ways to work. I forgot that I listen to these songs that are in this movie all the time, so there’s a lot of nostalgia of that as well. I love this movie so much, and I feel like the performances are as good as they can be.
Joe:
Greg: Justin Lin has perfected reducing the limitations and really only, you know, grabbing the the best parts of all of these performances. The writing, I feel like Chris Morgan did a really good job on the writing. And there are so many moments when people are in a huge rush in this movie, and then they stop to hear Vin Diesel say something dumb very slowly, and it’s like, don’t you have to go see your baby be born?
Greg: But no, Vin Diesel is giving a very slow line reading. And so they have to. The whole world stops when Vin Diesel give him those. It’s just like, I freaking love this.
Joe: This is so great. Yeah, I the main question I had when Vin Diesel was saying any line was, are they enhancing his voice to be lower than it, than it can be, because every line read of his is like base level. It is ridiculously low. I wish my voice were as deep as his. He has so many lines where it just.
Joe: It’s like, can you lean into your chest voice a little bit more on this? And it’s the deepest, dumbest line you’ve ever heard. But I’m like, yeah, I’d run through a wall for you right now, Vin Diesel. Yeah, whatever you got, whatever you want, tell me I’m good.
Greg: And the rock we’re used to the rock. Being around is Hobbs now. We obviously love Hobbs. I feel like he’s better as Hobbs in this movie than he was in Fast Five.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: He’s less. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he’s less performative.
Joe: I agree, he’s way over the top in the end. Fast five.
Greg: We got Gina Carano in this movie. What’s your take on Gina Carano joining the gang?
Joe: I liked her at the time. Obviously there’s some politics involved that we won’t get into. That should make her a little troubling, but okay, I didn’t mind her in this. You know, I’ve seen haywire, I like that. Yeah, know. Totally know.
Greg: It’s really like, is it Carano versus Ronda Rousey.
Joe:
Greg: In the world that we live in right now you kind of have to. Yeah.
Joe: Well they’re and they’re going to have a fight there literally there’s MMA or.
Greg: Yeah. To me I think.
Joe: Yeah it is. Yeah. So they’re gonna they’re literally going to have a fight that’s going to happen ten years too late for everyone involved.
Greg: And Ronda Rousey is in seven right.
Joe: Yeah. Both of them get their ass kicked by Letty. So that’s good.
Greg: Yeah, that might be more Ronda Rousey than I am Gina Carano, but I I’ve only seen haywire once. It’s probably time for me to watch haywire again.
Joe: Yeah, probably.
Greg: I thought that having her walk next to the Rock in this movie, was a good call. She has like, a Han Solo gun.
Joe:
Greg: And I don’t know, she’s, you know, got basically the chops of most of the cast as far as acting. Yes. I thought it was a really good fit for Gina for me.
Joe: Yeah. It’s kind of sad when like Tyrese and Ludacris are giving the best performances in the movie. So.
Greg: Yeah. You know who is the best? This is a question for you. Who is the best actor in the Fast and Furious movies? Is it maybe Michelle Rodriguez?
Joe: It’s probably Michelle Rodriguez. Yeah, yeah.
Greg: It’s not Vin Diesel.
Joe: Yeah, it’s followed closely by Shea Whigham for me.
Greg: Oh, 100%. Give me a break. Bring the Letty and Shea Whigham universe. Yeah, Shea Whigham shows up. Just kind of, being a punchline. It’s just it’s like bit part character from the fourth movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Breaks his nose again.
Joe:
Greg: I need you to rank.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: From worst to best. Shea Whigham in F1, Shea Whigham in The Gray Man, and Shea.
Joe: Wickham in Furious.
Greg: Six. Finally, let’s have the conversation that you had about Shea Whigham in those three movies.
Joe: Okay, I think from worst to best, from worst F1. Okay, I’ll just put.
Greg: A huge surprise, surprise Academy Award Best Picture nominee.
Joe: Yeah, if I will spare everyone my diatribe on F1 but hated it I think furious six. And then he is despicable in the gray man.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And perfect. He’s a character actor and he’s probably a much better actor than the, the stuff that we’ve seen him in. I would be curious to see him in.
Greg: Like a real movie.
Joe: Like a real movie, free Shea Whigham. We want to see him in some drama, because I think he’s probably a better actor than he’s allowed to be in these movies.
Greg: You know what? I’m not going to look at his IMDb page, but I think he he’s releasing them. They’re just not great bad movies.
Joe: So they’re not, what, a writer. Yeah, exactly.
Greg: But he, you know, he’s a diverse actor. We’re seeing him in our movies and he’s in the good ones too. He’s in the good ones. These are the great ones. I should. Yeah, I should put it out.
Joe: Yeah. Okay.
Greg: That was.
Joe: Close.
Greg: So you’re saying that, the Gray Man was his best performance?
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Yeah, because he is so despicable and he’s probably the nicest person on planet Earth. And he really sold being the abusive dad.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: To, young Ryan Gosling.
Joe: His scenes are pretty electric to me.
Greg: Yeah, totally.
Joe: I think we need to start kind of at the beginning of how do they get the gang back together. Well we got to bring Letty back from the dead. Yep. And there is a gang of people that Hobbs can’t stop. And he needs the only crew that can stop them. Yeah. And the carrot at the end of that stick is the fact that Letty is there.
Joe: And then everyone is just totally cool. So if you have kids, I have a child.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Imagine the conversation that would have happened if you had said you just had a baby.
Greg: Like minutes.
Joe: Ago, minutes ago. But this friend of mine who we thought was dead might be back. And I’m going to leave while you care for this infant. Is that okay? And the answer for Jordana Brewster’s Mia is 100%. You got to bring the family back together.
Greg: Totally. She keep saying it over the phone. She would feel better. Yeah, if they were together. Yeah. Vin Diesel and Paul Walker.
Joe: I’m imagining that conversation just minutes after my son was born. Yeah, it does not go like that. What’s maybe a day or two later, it would have been fine. Yeah, yeah. So that is the carrot that we have to get them to go take down this crew that needs to get the last piece of this weapon that can shut down an entire country’s military for a day, or something like that.
Joe: Like that. Right. You’re look, right now, just like questioning and nodding along is exactly what everyone needs to be. Just like, yep, that’s what we should do.
Greg: It’s pretty nebulous. Yeah. And I guess I kind of appreciate that, you know? Do we know why? Oh, and she’s doing that.
Joe: Nope.
Greg: No. Okay. I will say Luke Evans is one of the best actors who has ever acted.
Joe: Yeah. So great.
Greg: He is so good in this movie. And then he was definitely not the first choice. Jason Statham turned down the role, as did other people. Interestingly.
Joe: Jason Statham saw a four movie, five movie arc and he was like, not pass up on that.
Greg: Yeah, no. He basically was just like, not now, but not never coming in three months. When you’re filming the end credits.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But he is incredible. And he was so well written as a bad guy that you kind of like him.
Joe:
Greg: He kind of has a little bit of a Robert De Niro and Al Pacino scene from heat with Vin Diesel. Yeah, that’s pretty good. Yeah, but also, he has so many W’s on the board in this movie. The crew really gets cut down a lot. They have so many losses. They just keep getting beat up. They keep losing.
Greg: And I love that about this movie. The bad guy they’re like real stakes you know like yeah. And it’s not like they just are killing off characters. They’re not doing that. They’re just losing battles all over the place. And it makes for a really really good movie.
Joe:
Greg: Potentially the best one I’ve ever seen in my life.
Joe: Yeah I appreciate there’s an amazing sell the good guy and sell the bad guy seen in this expert level. Yeah. This is like top notch. Like you want top shelf. Yeah. So the sell the good guy. Sell the bad guy. This you come to this movie. Yeah.
Greg: Like it’s well done. And it’s not hilariously poorly done like a Steven Seagal movie, which also is kind of amazing. Yeah.
Joe: Right. And this might be a controversial take, but I think Vin Diesel is a better actor than we give him credit for.
Greg: I believe that, sure.
Joe: Paul Walker, I would I wouldn’t say that about and some of the other people in it, but I think Vin Diesel knows this character is not going to give you massive range. No. But as Dom Toretto, he has that on and he’s perfect. And so that scene with him and Luke Evans yeah is actually a good scene I loved it.
Joe: Yeah. It’s a fun middle of the movie. Good guy versus bad guy having a conversation. You know they’re both kind of exposed. But you know they kind of they have the conversation that needs to be had around their codes and all that. Sure. And it’s awesome. And it’s to me, it’s one of those moments that makes the movie for me.
Greg: Did you notice that Vin Diesel does a weird, like, lip flare thing in this movie?
Joe: No, but I’ve got to watch it as soon as we’re done for that. Yeah.
Greg: By the way, follow up question for our last episode, how many times have you seen The Gray Man since we recorded our last episode?
Joe: Twice. Amazing. And almost a third.
Greg: Almost a third, but not the third. And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about tonight.
Joe: Yeah. Okay.
Greg: We need to ask David how many times he’s seen the great amount since we recorded our last episode.
Joe: Hey, Greg, this David just calling to let you know I indeed have watched The Gray Man two times since we recorded. Well, one and a half. And so now I’m up to 12.5 times.
Greg: There were a couple moments where I wondered, why is the camera still on Vin Diesel? And then he would do just the weirdest, like lip flare. I don’t even know. It’s like a little wave and one of his lips, and then it would cut away from him, and I just let. Did Vin Diesel say, stay on me until I do my thing?
Joe: What?
Greg: What is this lip flare? The game that, Vin Diesel is playing? And why am I so into it? That’s what I want to ask you. Why was I so.
Joe: And that’s really between you and Vin Diesel. But okay, I’ll ask you. Alaska. I did not notice that. But I will from now on only be paying attention to that moment.
Greg: So at the end of Fast Five, we find out through Eva Mendes, who returned from 2 Fast 2 Furious. She walks to Hobbs in like the end credit scene, and says.
Joe: You believe in ghosts?
Greg: So Letty is alive. This is the beginning of no one ever really dies. Yeah. In the in the Fast and Furious movies, fast five kind of introduced the idea of what if this was just a big budget soap opera?
Joe:
Greg: And it has never felt more soap opera. E that in furious six, where Letty has, lost her memory. Why am I forgetting what that’s called? What’s that called? When you lose your.
Joe: Memories, you.
Greg: Amnesia?
Joe: Thank you. The irony alert.
Greg: That is maybe the funniest thing in furious six is Lenny’s amnesia. Yeah. Also the script around them talking about her amnesia is the funniest thing that happens in this movie. When we’re usually watching movies that are good enough that our best actors are selling pretty bad dialog. Yeah, this movie doesn’t benefit from that as much.
Joe: Yeah. Agreed.
Greg: So you hear the writing every once in a while, and for some reason twice in this movie, they have to remind the audience, Letty, when you realized you don’t remember anything, it sounds like it was written by a 12 year old. Here’s Shaw saying it. Hold on.
Joe: I like you, Letty.
Joe: I just feel a certain warmth towards you. When I found you in the hospital and you couldn’t remember anything.
Joe: I said to myself. This girl has a gift.
Clip: She’s a blank page. And that made.
Joe: Me feel somewhat protective toward you.
Greg: Okay. That’s Shaw, here’s Letty later in the movie.
Joe: Okay? I don’t I don’t even know how to say this to you, but,
Joe: Everything that’s happening is because of me. I’m the one that puts you on the cover and stuff.
Joe: I may not remember anything, but I know one thing about myself that nobody makes me do anything. I don’t want to.
Greg: Okay. So many cinematic booms in the sand. So good. Yeah, I don’t remember anything is potentially.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: This movie is perfect in every way except for remember Anything. I’ll just say.
Joe: That I agreed what it brings to mind, and I didn’t even really think of it until this moment as Luke Shaw’s character. It’s is like walking around hospitals looking for people with amnesia. Is that how we finding people?
Greg: And is it because she can’t remember anything that she has a gift?
Joe: What? Yeah. What makes no sense? No. Get it works.
Greg: And do they seem to be. Do we think that they’re dating and like his own Shaw dating?
Joe: Letty I thought that at first, but I don’t think so. No, I think he just feels paternal towards her as part of his team.
Greg: Oh, and he’s dating Gina Carano? Yeah, they’re like holding hands. Okay, okay. Did you need a plot twist in this movie?
Joe: Did I need one? No. Did I love it? Yeah, 100%. I know. So yes, I did need it.
Greg: Whatever minute that happens in this movie, there should be a plot twist in that minute. And I need a plot twist in that movie of every movie I watch for the rest of my life.
Joe: Yeah, if that moment happens with a record scratch, it is like just puts the cherry on top.
Greg: I mean, like in any other movie Hobbs would have known the whole time.
Joe:
Greg: Or Vin Diesel would have known the whole time. They’re actually like fallible in this movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: It’s perfect. It’s so good.
Joe: It is perfect. And I do feel like even though they do bring Letty back from the dead, there are stakes. We do, in theory, lose Gisele or Gal Gadot in this to save, Han, which is, you know, one of my favorite scenes that that last scene with the longest runway ever with the plane, it’s it’s perfect. Of course, they bring her back, at the end credits scene at all in the last one.
Joe: So, like, that is, if nobody dies and there are no stakes.
Greg: Do we know that it was really Gisele at the end of Fast X? Or was it maybe her twin sister? If we’re in a soap opera world.
Joe: Fair, that’s a fair point. I we don’t.
Greg: They might think they’re getting ready for a multiverse.
Joe: Fair.
Greg: And they’re going to abandon that idea because that was a good idea a couple of years ago. And it no longer is a good idea.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Could be a twin. Could be clone.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: There’s probably clones in this world.
Joe: Yeah. I wouldn’t put anything past them at this point.
Greg: So three Tom Cruise’s from oblivion are going to show up. It’s going to be amazing.
Joe: If you’re playing the drinking game of when we mentioned oblivion in our episodes, I take a drink now.
Greg: You know, what’s weird is you used to mention John Wick in every episode, and it just seemed like we had kind of we weren’t really warm. We weren’t warmed up until you mentioned John Wick and I. I wanted to confront you about this on the mic. Why you mentioned John Wick anymore. Are we staying cold? What’s happening?
Joe: I am Ian, I am happy to bring it back to the John Wick averse.
Joe: That’s that I don’t I feel like these movies are in separate action categories or that is that, like closed captioned moment.
Greg: Totally.
Joe: Hand-to-hand fighting. And this is let’s do crazy stuff with cars. And see how wild we can get with it. So yeah they are to me separate. But give me a minute and we’ll I’ll tie it back end.
Greg: Don’t worry. You’ll accept that note.
Joe: Except that note.
Greg: I think this is the last movie where I was really all in on the relationships between the characters. Paul Walker passing away really disrupted that, obviously. But in this movie, Brian and Mia, I really like that they’re together. They’re adorable. Obviously. Little Jack.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Their kid. And then Han and Gisele really like them in this movie. Yeah, it seems like they shouldn’t be in these movies. It seems like they need to go off and like, have their adventure in Tokyo. How many times do they mention Tokyo?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But then, I mean, it’s a pretty interesting relationship between Dom and Letty as well because Letty can’t remember.
Joe:
Greg: But there’s, there’s something there.
Joe: Yeah. We get to see their love story from the beginning. Yeah. Again. So yeah I do feel like seven carry that a little bit more. And I do think I mean it is hard not to shed a tear at the end of seven when they have the kind of just the homage to Paul Walker and that character.
Joe: And that movie is good. I don’t want to sell it short. It is the movie that jumps the shark. Yeah. But I think what is lost with Paul Walker passing away, these movies are built around the relationship between Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. And they are the, the foundation, the anchors of the movie. Yeah, yeah. So they’re both kind of they’re both the costars of it.
Joe: And then the rest of the movies are this is a Vin Diesel driven world now. And so he kind of needs Paul Walker, who’s a little bit probably nicer. That’s kind of the heart. Yeah. Of of the movies. Yeah. That’s kind of his role. And they’re like he’s you know everything’s going to be fine. Vin diesel can win a fight.
Joe: But Paul Walker is the heart and kind of the soul of the movies. And without him, they kind of fall off. And so seven I think while it it shouldn’t be held up with these three, it is still in a class of its own, especially compared to eight, nine and ten. Yeah, in terms of what those movies are.
Greg: But when it comes to Fast and Furious six, I just think that it is so well-directed. Justin Lin is going to great lengths to make sure that you understand where all the action is in relation to where all the other action is. It is like better than the Avengers by a mile in my estimation, because there’s so much going on all the time and it is better stitched together, and the storytelling stakes are just something I’m more involved with than the Avengers.
Greg: I just don’t know that the world understands how great justice.
Joe: I agree.
Greg: This guy is one of our.
Joe: Best. That last scene on the plane, I was trying to count how many different vignettes are happening within it that are all tied together.
Greg: Totally.
Joe: That crossover. It is, I think, upwards of 7 or 8 different fight scenes and action sequences that are happening. Oh yeah. At the same time, I hesitate to say this because I feel like there are other movies that have done this as well, but I feel like this movie was one of the first where they really stitched together that many things happening all at once, and tried to tie them together in a thread.
Joe: Like, I think that that’s, you know, a fight scene that’s happening on the plane, two different cars that are chasing it — one has Han and one you have Tyrese and Ludacris, and another you have people jumping from car to from plane to like. It is ridiculous. How many things are happening at once. We sometimes talk about like the best action scenes sometimes aren’t the final action scene.
Joe: That is not the case in this movie. This movie is right. Yeah, everything you want from a last action scene, as crazy as you would hoped it would.
Greg: Be totally masterclass.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: We got to get to the runway. Yeah. Is it time for us to have the conversation? And you know a bit about that. This runway I think they estimated is about 36 miles long.
Joe: That’s fair.
Greg: I’m doing this off the dome right now. I think the longest runway is like two and a half miles, unlike when Army base. The first time you saw this movie in the theater. Did you see this in the theater?
Joe: I don’t remember, I think it was at home, but.
Greg: We weren’t hanging out back then. Yeah. Otherwise we would have seen these together in the theater. We were obviously screaming from the rooftops to everyone who listened about these movies separately before we kind of reconnected. I saw this movie many times in the.
Joe: Theaters, so.
Greg: I was screaming so loudly from the rooftops that when this movie came, when Fast Five came out, this happened as well, especially when Fast Six came out. Many people were like, well, I’m going to see this, see where they go. I was like, yes, I do. I already seen it twice. Is that a problem? The runway scene, I think, was constructed by Justin Lin while they were editing Fast Four.
Joe: Interesting.
Greg: And and then he actually had it, like.
Joe: Storyboarded,
Greg: And it was just something he kept working on. As soon as they had the money to make this scene, he was going to make a Fast and Furious movie with this scene in it, and they didn’t do it for Fast Five. I think for budget reasons, maybe for story reasons, I have no idea. But that was the first thing they had for furious six.
Joe:
Greg: Was that part and it was all planned, animatic, whatever the whatever it’s called when they like, actually kind of animate it too.
Joe: Right?
Greg: That was done. And they built the movie backwards from that.
Joe:
Greg: And that informed what was going to happen with the characters in Fast Five. We decided they were going to be like, super thieves.
Joe:
Greg: Super spies. Yeah. And in this movie, they basically are superheroes. I mean, they’re doing things that like, people can’t do.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: More so than before. And, and that gets to be that’s kind of where you jump the shark. I think when you kind of take that too far. That’s what happened with John McClane for me and you know, Live Free or Die Hard. That’s why they’re showing them doing all these crazy things like, Vin Diesel launching off of his car, jumping off of his car, and then catching Letty in midair between to, you know, bridges or whatever, changing her trajectory so that she is now matching his trajectory.
Greg: And then they like, you know, crashing to a car. He’s fine. There is no.
Joe: No ill effects. Yeah, yeah.
Greg: No, no, no, no need to go to David Harbor’s house and have a drink and take a shower. So he’s now fine.
Joe: If you’re playing at home, that’s an extraction reference. So. Yeah. Drink. If you’re, But if you have extraction on your drinking game. Yeah. Cards at home.
Greg: Nobody in this movie ever goes to, like, a veterinarian’s office, like in The Gray Man to remove a bullet or whatever.
Joe: Or John Wick.
Greg: Or John Wick. Yep. Thank you. Time to warm it up. Nailed it. It’s really cold in here until you said that. But there is a scene where, Letty, when she first sees Vin Diesel, she shoots him.
Joe:
Greg: Perfect way for this, you know, to happen. And but then he’s like doing the thing where he’s like pulling the bullet out just conveniently they always have that bean shaped.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Greg: And they always have like the little grabber thingies that kind of look like long scissors that where they’re grabbing.
Joe: You know, bullets. Yeah.
Greg: What is the deal with the bean shaped.
Joe: Dish.
Greg: Joe? Why does everybody who gets shot have the bean shape?
Joe: I don’t know, it’s a really good question.
Greg: And if it’s there, there’s never a place. The bullet into the bean dish. It’s. You drop it in. You have to.
Joe: Yeah. You got to have the. You gotta have it landing in there.
Greg: This is like eating Chinese food to show we’re relaxing and having a fun night in.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: It’s great. Bad movie code.
Joe: For.
Greg: Oh, my gosh, I loved it so much. So as we’re talking about all of these different action scenes, man, I was thinking about Justin Lin a lot, but I was also thinking about the editors of this movie. There is a pace and a rhythm to the editing in this movie.
Joe:
Greg: That I don’t typically notice. You know, there’s such a rhythm to it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: By the end, it was like, that is just the greatest feeling movie. And I have to give credit to the editors for it. Yeah. So Christian Wagner is like the main, the main dude who edited this movie. But we also have, Kelly Matsumoto and Dylan Highsmith. They also get an edited by. But we can’t leave out Lee Paul Som Boyd.
Joe: Who would that’s that would be criminal film editor.
Greg: And a lot of these people, by the way, have worked on many movies that we’ve loved, including Next, Man on Fire.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: I mean, this is our career right here. These are our people. Lee Folsom Boyd actually edited the, the safe scene and fast five.
Joe:
Greg: So, like, these are our people. Yeah. That are just basically making the movies that we love and, yeah, rewatch rewatch.
Joe: Of our lives. Yeah.
Greg: Greig Dyria also credited as a film editor. They’re unbelievable. Yeah. These editors and I don’t know that I think of editing very much, but in this movie I definitely did.
Joe: I 100% agree it is impossible to watch to me, that plane sequence. And not yeah, just marvel at the direction and the editing that is happening. Yeah, this movie is the blueprint on how to do multiple action sequences happening at the same time. Yeah, but it is to me like, and we’ll get to this question later. But like, the editors on this movie should have been nominated to me for an Academy Award, literally.
Greg: 1,000% completely agree. It just feels right.
Joe:
Greg: I really think this editing feels right. But it’s saying it literally sings to me. Yeah. Incredible. The cinematographer on this movie Stephen F. Windon and you’ll recognize his name from last week with The Gray Man.
Joe:
Greg: Chris Morgan we’ve talked about as the writer second unit director. Obviously the stunts in this movie and the filming of the stunts is just unbelievable. Spiro Razatos same as last week Joe, The Gray Man.
Joe: Yeah there we go.
Greg: Do you think these people are all friends with Shea Whigham? Probably. Like, do they get hired as a package, do you think?
Joe: I hope so, because Shea Whigham is probably a national treasure that we just don’t know about. I think you’re right.
Greg: All right. Well, Joe, it occurs to me that there’s probably some people out there who haven’t seen furious six, if you can even believe that. It feels weird to even say so. I know, to be honest.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But why don’t we pretend that you’re walking down the aisles of Blockbuster Video, you’re picking up Blu rays or DVDs off the shelf in 2013, and you’re trying to figure out which movie you should rent that night. You’re picking up the box. You look at the back to see the synopsis. Is this the movie for me? That’s right.
Greg: It’s time for the back of the box.
Joe: It’s the back of the box. The gang is back and furious now hired by Hobbs the Rock to chase down a deadly crew trying to steal the last component of. Of a weapon which can blind an entire country’s military. But have they met their match with an elite team of bad guys hell bent on selling their weapon to the highest bidder?
Joe: Can they succeed with their backs against the wall? Buckle up because you are in for the ride of your life. Wow. Do you rent it? I think you rent that movie.
Greg: I think I do, yeah. Is Elsa Pataky in this movie?
Joe: Yeah. Of course. She takes one for the team and is totally let the love of her life walk away to meet the love of his life who has amnesia. So it’s like, yeah, yeah.
Greg: I think I do. Yeah.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: All right. So that’s like the marketing, the back in the box. Let’s go on down on his town, Joe. Okay, let’s get down to the real Joe. Skye. Tucker back in the box for furious six.
Joe: Okay. This movie marks the high watermark for the franchise. I can hear you now talking about the seventh movie. It’s good, but also marks the turn into CGI heavy stunts. And to be honest, if Paul Walker does not die while making the movie, would it be as popular as it is? So enjoy this movie with its practical stunts, filmed with real car crashes and surprises and the longest runway in history, the last action sequence is an incredible feat of editing, with upwards of seven different vignettes coordinated together as the team tries to stop a plane from taking off.
Joe: It is the perfect finale for the movie, punctuated by Vin Diesel jumping a car through an exploding plane.
Greg: A high watermark.
Joe:
Greg: So in your real back of the box, you’re saying it’s better than fast five?
Joe: Yeah, I think it’s better than fast five.
Greg: Interesting. Did that change while we recorded this or did you write that before this episode?
Joe: I did write this before this episode. And so I’m on board with your thesis. So this is the best Fast and Furious movie and maybe the greatest bad movie we’ve ever reviewed.
Greg: Yeah, we wanted to. It took us two years to build up to this moment domestically. This is the second highest grossing Fast and Furious movie.
Joe: Okay, that makes me feel better than it did. Well.
Greg: All right, Joe, speaking of box office, should we get to the box office and what the critics said about this movie?
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: This movie’s budget was $160 million.
Joe: It’s pretty high for 2013 domestically.
Greg: $238 million. Okay. Internationally, $550 million worldwide, 788.
Joe: So people made the money off of this movie.
Greg: It’s Universal’s biggest franchise point, I think. All right. So let’s talk about what the critics thought about this movie. Joe, when you think about the Rotten Tomatoes score from critics, what do you think this movie got?
Joe: To support? David Hawkins theory that everything is a 70 feels like a 70.
Greg: No, but it really does kind of feel like a 70, does it?
Joe: It does feel like a 70. I remember that Fast Four to Fast Five. Like critics didn’t get Fast Four, but then they got Fast Five. Yeah, I’m going to go 7971.
Greg: Wow.
Joe: It feels like okay, so it is a 70.
Greg: You’re off your game on this one.
Joe: Emmet.
Greg: Okay. But as far as the audience score, we’ve got over 250,000 audience ratings on this. So what do you think the popcorn meter and the audience score is on Rotten Tomatoes?
Joe: I’m going to go 8284.
Greg: Okay, there he is. Okay.
Joe: All right. Sweet view.
Greg: All right. Let’s find out what the critics thought of this movie for the Seattle Times. Writing for our local paper, our friend Moira MacDonald wrote in this review. Guess what? She gave this as far as their star rating out of four.
Joe: I think this is a three out of four for her.
Greg: This is a two and a half. I think we are very consistently two and a half out of four. Okay. Yeah. Great bad movies.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: But listen to this. Let’s just cut to another car chase, okay? Yes. That’s what this franchise knows how to do. And if that’s the kind of popcorn fun you’re looking for, fast and furious six has the goods.
Joe: Absolutely. And let’s cut to a car chase. Could be a perfect name for this podcast. That’s quite frankly, absolutely in.
Greg: The running.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: All right. The New York Times says a satisfying thrill ride, at least on a par with the earlier installments.
Joe: Yeah. All right, everyone’s a little more tepid than I should be, but that’s all right.
Greg: Little snooty. Yeah. From the New York Times. Nell Minow from Movie Mom. I think she writes for Roger Ebert. Dot com now says, contrary to the history of just about every other multi-sequel series and what I thought were the laws of nature, these keep getting better.
Joe: I think she gets us.
Greg: I think now gets us. Yeah. This is the funniest negative, comment we got from Tim Robey from the Daily Telegraph in the UK. Even by the paltry standards of previous scripts, it’s slow witted and won’t shut up — two out of five stars.
Joe: I mean, slow witted and more. Shut up is probably another good thing for a podcast.
Greg: The Atlantic says. Furious six continues on in the same vein as its predecessor, and may just be my favorite of the lot.
Joe: Thank you, The Atlantic, I will, we’ll take it.
Greg: The Hollywood Reporter says this new entry will only add mightily to the good fortunes of Universal’s biggest franchise, no matter how silly and outlandish the action gets, and it does become ridiculous. It also delivers the goods its audience expects a great.
Joe: What a good review.
Greg: For a great bad movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: You have to include the word ridiculous in their Entertainment Weekly says a borderline ridiculous, over-the-top demolition derby that also happens to be a perfectly constructed, low IQ blast.
Joe: Low IQ blast also name on the running. In the running.
Greg: Okay, New York Post says for my money, furious six is more fun than Skyfall and a lot more fun than the deadly dull Star Trek Into Darkness, both of which ask you to take their silly plots way too seriously.
Joe: I’ll allow it. Although Skyfall yeah is brilliant and perfect in every way, variety says.
Greg: Faithful, I have so many reviews I.
Joe: Had to get. Yeah. All right.
Greg: I was so excited about this movie. Faithful fans and passer by alike should be more than pleased by this superior piece of classical action craftsmanship. That’s variety.
Joe: Yeah, I agree with that.
Greg: All right. We’ll go out on this one Empire magazine. Oh, and Williams says furious six, like its predecessors, is a big screen no brainer. That’s objectively terrible but undeniably pleasurable.
Joe: Objectively terrible, but undeniably pleasurable. Good name for this podcast right there.
Greg: All right, Joe, should we get some drinking games?
Joe: Oh, let’s do it. I am so excited to hear your drinking games. But before we get into our bespoke drinking games, we have our stock drinking games. Again, doesn’t have to be alcohol. Can be water, can be coffee. Coffee with pepper in it to tie in what we talked about sort of this. So yeah. All right silent Helicopter.
Joe: We do not have a silent helicopter. We do have a low flying plane slash kind of surprise low flying plane. So, I’m kind of on the fence about that one 5050. You can drink or not for that one.
Greg: We do start the movie with a helicopter flying by.
Joe: That’s true.
Greg: I think it might have been real.
Joe: Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Greg: So unexpected.
Joe: Unexpected in this movie, push in and enhance. Oh, we definitely have that when we’re doing selling the good guy and the bad guy. Lots of stuff on the screen pushing in. Yeah. When two people share a slow motion, like in the middle of chaos, this happens a lot in their car chases. But the most notable is in the first London car chase, where Paul Walker, looking at his doppelganger as she has just flipped him over.
Joe: It’s awesome.
Greg: Yeah, very much like Mission Impossible two.
Joe:
Greg: Just a bit of John Woo in this movie.
Joe: Is I would 100% agree with that.
Greg: And I’m here for it.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The only thing it’s missing is wind in places where there should not be wind and close ups. Of slow motion hair moving across faces. Right. Explosion. Silence. We do not have explosion or silence. Suffering ringing in the ears. Opening credits scene where the title locks in a place. Without it, the sound drops out.
Greg: Yeah. Do you want to hear it? Yeah, it’s the last. It’s the last quarter of the song. Yeah. We all miss.
Joe: Title. So.
Clip: Oh, and.
Clip: If there’s a helicopter.
Greg: I just wanted to throw a helicopter out of nowhere at you in the middle of the episode. Here.
Joe: It’s perfect. Does it flash back to dialog two minutes ago. The credits, do they show everything that’s going to happen? So I gave that one to you. I did not have the crazy CGI, although that is a very generous. There are some moments in this movie where CGI plays a heavy role, but for the most part, the stunt of practical and actually happening.
Greg: Yeah, I’m trying to think of close calls.
Joe: Yeah, there’s there’s not as much. So it’s not it’s not what we’re used to. So I didn’t didn’t count it. But you could make a case at certain points. Great bad shots when there are guns. Yes. Are the streets inexplicably wet. Oh my God. Every night they show a street it is wet. It is glorious. It is so perfect.
Greg: Wet and not raining.
Joe: Yeah. It is awesome. I love it so much. We do not have a give us the room. Although you could make a case that when the rock is interrogating the right person, that. That’s kind of a give us the room. Because no one wants to go in there because he’s basically throwing him against the wall. Yeah. Interpol has, is mentioned multiple times.
Greg: So many times.
Joe: And I did not notice the cell phone smash. So that is our stock drinking games. All right, Greg Swineherd, I toss it to you. What is your first drinking game? Does it rhyme with mentioning Tokyo Ultra?
Greg: That’s my fourth one. But I will say that.
Joe: Yes.
Greg: I will definitely throw Tokyo in there.
Joe: Okay, I have that one as well. So, but what is your real first one?
Greg: My real first one is anytime they say extradition.
Joe:
Greg: Take a drink.
Joe: Oh, my God, that is.
Greg: So is this movie opens in Spain.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And, where they are, there’s no extradition.
Joe: Is that really true? That there’s no extradition in Spain? Or is that just seems.
Greg: Like a stretch, right? Yeah.
Joe: You know, it’s like a stretch, but that’s all right. It’s like a 70, though, you know, we’re not we’re not. We’re not counting things like that. Yeah. I have two that I’m going to tie together. These ones are drink water in between each one. Okay. Any time you hear tires squealing or engines revving, take a drink. Oh.
Joe: Oh, my gosh.
Greg: My next one is anytime either somebody goes through glass or crashes into glass.
Joe: Oh my gosh. My next.
Greg: To take a drink.
Joe: Is anytime someone is thrown into a wall and it breaks.
Greg: I love it. That’s incredible. I just have a general one for the Fast and Furious, series. Anytime there’s a close up of Dom’s cross necklace.
Joe: Oh, my God, I have that one, too. Anytime there’s a shot of the necklace, I have that one.
Greg: Which I guess Letty kind of had in this movie.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, I have. Any time you wonder why the rock is so shiny. Take a drink.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Roman. Doesn’t he say, like, do you guys smell baby oil? Yeah. He also. Roman, by the way, does a lot of, making up for how he crosses the bridge from fast five to fast six. Pretty well, yeah, where he asked the crew. I thought that was our last job in the last movie. You know, why are we here?
Greg: Yeah. Anyways, every time the Rock says the word woman, which is how he refers to AI, is it just seen Gina Carano or is it other people in the movie as well? I think so, off putting.
Joe: Yeah, it is. I think it’s just Gina Carano, but I don’t remember.
Greg: I don’t understand it. It makes me uncomfortable. I really don’t get it.
Joe: Yeah. Okay. Any time a car rolls, take a drink. Wow. In this. Yeah.
Greg: Which is what happens in the moment when we realize, Vin Diesel is okay. He goes out of the front of the plane in his car.
Joe: Yeah, and it flips.
Greg: I need to think about how that actually happens. How can you drive a car straight through the front of a plane? Yeah, but then it immediately crashes.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And then we have the moment where he walks in, like, slow motion away from the.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Exploding.
Joe: It makes no sense. Don’t worry about it.
Greg: It’s so ridiculous. Yeah. It’s basically action movie bingo is what’s happening right there. Yeah. My next one is every time a scene ends with a Roman joke.
Joe: Oh, that is so.
Greg: He’s like the the comedic button at the end of a lot of scenes.
Joe: Yeah, I maybe I’ll, I’ll have I have another Roman one. I’ll throw that in there any time they reference his forehead. Like a dream.
Greg: Yeah. Any time. Let’s lack of memory. As mentioned.
Joe: Take a drink. Any Han is eating in a scene. Take a drink. I love that.
Greg: Anytime, Vin Diesel flares his.
Joe: Lips. Yeah.
Greg: It’s something you can’t unsee once you start noticing.
Joe: Okay, awesome. Anytime someone jumps from car to car and onto another car, take a drink. Yes.
Greg: All right, Joe, are you ready for Joe’s trope lightning round, aka signs? You might be watching a great bad movie.
Joe: I am, and I have a special new trope just for you, Greg.
Greg: Amazing. Okay.
Joe: Is Shea Whigham in this movie? That’s a trope because the last three.
Greg: Yes.
Joe: And at least he might actually be the actor that has been in the most movies we have done.
Greg: Oh, interesting.
Joe: Yeah, because he has been in at least five of our episodes.
Greg: Incredible.
Joe: Someone has punched in the face and smiles and a trope that happens. We have kind of the honorable man trope. We have kill the henchman, but the bad guy lives, because yep. Oh, in our lives, color filters. Especially in the beginning of this movie, as they are showing where everybody is, what everyone is doing.
Joe: Especially Ludacris. I think he is in Mexico and we are told that by the color story, they are the best at something. Sure, they’re kind of coming out of retirement. That’s quasi. We do have a charismatic, bad guy. We have the henchmen who are allowed to hurt the good guys and the bad guys. We have lots of conversations in the middle of car chases.
Joe: We do have a I think there’s a duffle bag full of money. I marked that one, but I don’t remember exactly where that is. We have amazing recovery time. We have medical care from my loved one or vet’s office or staples where they’re dropping it in the kidney shaped dish. And that is our trope lightning round. We actually don’t have as many trope as I thought we would, which is interesting.
Joe: Maybe it’s why it’s one of the greatest bad movies ever. It doesn’t have a lot of tropes.
Greg: Maybe it’s recipe.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: All right, so we move on to important questions.
Joe: Oh my God, I’m so excited to hear your answers to these.
Greg: There have been some things we’ve avoided talking about. I think it’s time for us to get to him. All right Joe did furious six. Hold up then.
Joe: I think it did. Yeah, and I don’t want to step on the answer for the next question, but I do feel like not as much then as now.
Greg: Okay, well let’s get to that second question then. Does it hold up now?
Joe: I think it holds up better now. Yeah. Especially when held against what has come after it.
Greg: 100% saying that’s exactly my answer. Even more now. Yeah. We didn’t know we had back then.
Joe: I think it was great then. And it’s better.
Greg: Now, 100%. How hard do they sell the good guy in this movie?
Joe: Oh my God, there is one of the greatest sell the good guy scenes. And this is not John Wick level. Yeah, but it is close.
Greg: How hard do they sell the bad guy?
Joe: Greg, tell me, how hard do they sell the bad guy in this movie? Let’s listen to it.
Joe: Our target Owen Shaw.
Vin Diesel: Former major in the.
Joe: Special Ops soldier who ran the UK’s mobility division in Kabul and Basra. The air mobility units. They’re called vehicular warfare — best in the world. They’re top, on this one. And for years they’ve.
Greg: Been running jobs in Europe. It’s our most recent jobs and graduated.
Joe: Them to a whole new level. I love that Ludacris.
Greg: Has heard of him.
Joe: Knows about this, this like whatever. Yeah. Oh, they’re the truth. That’s why I got.
Greg: Extra points if someone in the movie Ken has heard of that person.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. Oh, I.
Greg: Heard about that crew. They’re like the crew in Panama and under siege. All right, Joe, why is there romance in this movie?
Joe: I’ll allow it for this as the greatest. One of the greatest bad movies we’ve ever had. Yeah, there’s romance because Brian and Mia have had a baby. Yep. And it’s family.
Greg: And they’re adorable.
Joe: And it is Dom and Letty getting back together. Yeah. And yeah, you can’t stop true love if, like us, you have seen Los Bandoleros. You know that their love is unbreakable.
Greg: Do you want to explain why that is? For the people who don’t know.
Joe: That is the prequel to Fast Furious four, and obviously that ties everything together. And we wish.
Greg: Is it a full length movie?
Joe: Oh, no, it’s a short. It’s a.
Greg: Short. Okay. And who directed the short film?
Joe: Oh, oh, and that would be Vin Diesel.
Greg: Okay, great. Sounds pretty good. Yeah.
Joe: It’s the best movie you’ve ever not seen. Yeah, Greg and I have seen this and it’s amazing. And we wish that there was short films between every single Fast and Furious movie. Yeah. And if you have seen that movie. Yeah, it is one of the most ridiculous movies ever made. And it is perfect in every way.
Greg: It’s like 20 minutes long.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I will put it on the the web page for this episode at Great Bad Movies. I think it’s something that I can embed on our, on our website. You should definitely take 20 minutes and watch this.
Joe: It’s worth it if.
Greg: You’ve ever wondered.
Joe: And who hasn’t.
Greg: Have I been wasting my time in my life up until this moment? The answer is yes. The second you press play.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: You will wonder why you waited so long. And also, how dare you, Jocelyn and Hun?
Joe: That’s right.
Greg: Three solid relationships. That’s right. Yeah. All right, Joe, are we bad people for loving this movie?
Joe: It’s, I mean, I, I it’s hard for me to see a world over. Not that there’s no avoiding it. Yeah.
Greg: You’re resigned. Next important question. Does furious six deserve a sequel?
Joe: To deserve a sequel is hard for me, because I think we would look on this franchise differently if there were no sequels. Yeah, but I will watch every single sequel that comes. It’s hard to say no when you have just seen one of the greatest bad movies ever to say, I don’t want more of that.
Greg: We get Deckard Shaw, we get Jason Statham. Yeah, that’s the bad guy, but we lose Justin Lin just they said, we want another movie out, I think, like in a year. And Justin Lin said, I can’t make one of these movies in a year. And so I think it, you know, that kind of led us to, Vin Diesel having an outsized influence on what happened.
Joe:
Greg: And so his set piece ideas were probably a bit dumber, like the buildings jumping from building to building. I think furious seven could have been a better movie than this one.
Joe:
Greg: And just the fact that they had to shut down and re figure it out after Paul Walker passed away, you know, the cards were stacked against them.
Joe: Yeah. The first half of that movie.
Greg: Really good.
Joe: Kind of really good. Yeah. Before they got to Dubai and all the stuff that happens like from that, like it is I’m in.
Greg: Yeah. All right. Does this movie deserve a prequel?
Joe: No, I can’t I can’t go there.
Greg: Okay?
Joe: I would accept spinoffs. And I love your idea of a Gisele-Han spinoff. Or Roman and Tej. We don’t need a prequel. We’ve, we’ve seen these characters from the very beginning. I feel like we don’t need it.
Greg: Well yeah. So this movie takes place basically after the events of fast five. I don’t know how much of a time jump there is, but not much.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I think the only answer here is obviously yes, it should have a prequel, and it should have cost $100 million and been 18 minutes long. And Vin Diesel directs it and shows what his life is like with Elena in Spain. Okay, between fast five and fast six.
Joe: I didn’t realize you’re going to provide that kind of context. I’m back in.
Greg: It’s a sequel to Los Bandoleros. It’s called Dos Bandoleros.
Joe: I agree in like, this every day of the week. Okay. Okay, great. How much do you need? 100, 200.
Greg: Million.
Joe: 100 million. Okay. Done. Yeah. Okay.
Greg: Okay. Joe, very important question. I mean, this this this one, this time sometimes I don’t this time, this is coming from the heart. Should this movie have been nominated for Best picture at the Oscars?
Joe: Probably. But what was nominated against it?
Greg: Here we go. 12 years a Slave. Obviously the big winner that year. Okay. Also American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, gravity, her, Nebraska, Philomena and The Wolf of Wall Street nine nominees that year.
Joe: I mean, I feel like we seamlessly slide this in the 10th nominee.
Greg: Yes. No questions.
Joe: Asked. And it doesn’t need to win. No. Maybe for best film editing or something like that.
Greg: But the grade? Yep. Best director.
Joe: Yeah, it doesn’t need to win Best Picture, but I think it would sit fine with those. Yeah. So I guess is the answer.
Greg: You know what I was noticing after we talked about the Oscars? We don’t necessarily talk about the movies we’ve seen. When we talk about the Oscars, we talk about movies we would be willing to see.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Which I think is the true test of the Oscars 13 years later.
Joe:
Greg: I definitely would watch 12 Years a Slave. I have not seen it. I enjoy it. American Hustle, Captain Phillips I don’t know that it should have been nominated for Best Picture. In fact, I wonder if it’s a great bad movie.
Joe: I haven’t seen I don’t know if I’ve seen any of the Oscar nominated films that year.
Greg: Really? You’ve never seen gravity now? Oh, Joe, we’re going to get to gravity.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: So it’s classic Sandy Bullock.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Yeah. All of these movies really good. I’ve never seen Philomena, but I’m going to, I really like to Judi Dench.
Joe:
Greg: True story. Director Stephen Frears made it. Yeah. Looks really good. Yeah. We’re just talking about movies I would be willing to watch.
Joe: Okay, sweet.
Greg: There’s no hard hitting content you look for in the in the Great Benjamins podcast.
Joe: That’s right.
Greg: All right, Joe, let’s get to the next question here. How can this movie be fixed? AKA who should be in the remake?
Joe: This is near perfect.
Greg: Agreed.
Joe: The only thing I would like to see is I. Can they make Vin Diesel’s voice lower? That’s the only note that I have.
Greg: It’s an important question to ask.
Joe: Otherwise it’s perfect across the board. There’s nobody else I’d want to see in any of the roles. It is perfect. What about you? How do you answer this question?
Greg: I mean, we’re starting out at ten out of ten.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And so it’s just like you’re kind of getting into nit picking here. Is there any way it could be made? It could be better. And I’m happy to say that the answer is yes.
Joe: Okay. Sweet.
Greg: The weakest point, I think, in this film is in Owen Shaw’s crew.
Joe:
Greg: I feel like we need to fire all of those actors and replace that crew with the entire cast of the film Ocean’s 11.
Joe: And. No, no, it’s I mean, we.
Greg: At least give them a few times, but we’re talking George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, awesome, Bernie Mac, Carl Reiner, the whole crew where they’re all back.
Joe: And they’re are just getting obliterated by the good guys, I love it. Yes.
Greg: And now this movie cost $220 million. Yes. It just went up $60 million, but worth it.
Joe: Yeah, I greenlight it. Yeah.
Greg: All right, Joe, very important question. What album is this?
Joe: One of the most important artists in my life. As someone who has done amazing work over the course of their career, and to me, this is an underrated album of theirs that should be in the pantheon of their best work, but I think it’s sometimes overshadowed by some of their earlier work. This is PJ Harvey. Is this desire?
Joe: Wow. PJ Harvey is one of the most important artists in my life. I love all of. I love her work. I don’t love all of her work, but this is one of her best albums start to finish. And that follows. We have rid of me into to bring you my love into this movie or into this album is this desire.
Joe: So if you’re looking at like a three album. Yeah. Run. Yeah this may be forgotten for some of for Rid of Me and for To Bring You My Love, which are both amazing albums. But this album is a departure from that. But it is so good. So that is my album. All right. What album is this for you?
Greg: I don’t know if this is going to make sense to anybody, but I have to do it anyway. Okay. So first of all, what I was going for when I was looking for this album was this film is so good, a high watermark before we get to the future movies which made even more money than it. So I think it’s often overshadowed because fast five was so good and such a noticeable leap up from, for which obviously I will watch for every day of the week as well.
Greg: Yeah. So it’s like this, like somewhat forgotten maybe best movie.
Joe:
Greg: That’s been overshadowed and is definitely worth reconsidering.
Joe: Yep.
Greg: So what album is that? I don’t know if anyone’s going to get this, but there’s this band called In Excess from Australia that was around in the 80s and in the 90s and they put out four albums between 1980 and, 1984. And then they put out their fifth album, which is called Listen Like Thieves. And that’s the first album that I really like by this band.
Greg: And I’m bringing this up because I got in a big debate with my neighbor the other day who’s better, Duran Duran or in excess?
Joe: Wow.
Greg: Sidebar, Joe, that’s I had the conversation about Duran Duran in excess, you know, don’t even think about it. Who do you think is the better band in excess of Duran Duran? And honestly, either either one is is a win for me.
Joe: I think it’s an excess.
Greg: Yeah, I absolutely think it’s an excess for me too. I just think of the better band. There’s like 100 people in the band. You how can you be a bad band if there’s like 100 people? The band.
Joe: Someone’s got to be getting that.
Greg: This is a high watermark for me before they made even bigger albums. I think the next album, kick, is also really good, but honestly, I’m not sure if I had this album listen like Thieves and Kick sitting in front of me. I think I put Listen Like Thieves on, and that’s exactly what I would do if I had Fast and Furious six and Fast and Furious seven in front of me.
Greg: That’s a fine album is an excess. Listen like this.
Joe: Awesome.
Greg: Produced by Chris Thomas, a guy who worked on the White Album. Speaking of our last episode, with David Hogan, he was the assistant producer under George Martin, so that’s a pretty good, thing. I guess he was kind of influential in the process. He co-produced All Things Must Pass by George Harrison, his first solo album. I think it’s for solo album, with George Martin.
Greg: He did Roxy Music. He did, Never Mind the Ballocks by the Sex Pistols. He did the pretenders album from 1980. This guy was all over the place. He did the, Dido album.
Joe: Awesome.
Greg: So in there, somebody else? Somebody else I’m forgetting.
Joe: So a bonafide producer? Yeah. All of this as well.
Greg: It’s such an incredible sounding album. So listen like these. All right, Joe, let’s get down to this. Do I even need to list the top to bottom ratings for this movie?
Joe: I don’t think so. I think I vote. I think we both know where we’re landing on this.
Greg: Where do you land on this?
Joe: This is a great bad movie. This is one of the greatest bad movies ever.
Greg: Yeah. Thank you to everybody who worked on it.
Joe: Yeah, I wouldn’t have. A year ago when we did fast five. Thought that something was supplant that as better than that movie. But I.
Greg: Mean, either.
Joe: I think that this is, with some caveat, the greatest bad movie we have done so.
Greg: Far. This show is a love letter to the most enjoyable movies, and this has been an incredibly easy love letter for me to write because I enjoyed this movie so much. Yeah, I, I enjoy it more and more every time.
Joe: So I think we just need to get you to watch The Gray Man more, and you will love that movie as much as this one.
Greg: All right, well, Joe, we did it.
Joe: Yeah, we had the conversation and it’d be, had I. I mean, you had, what, 13 years to talk about this movie? Yeah. Yeah. This is the definitive conversation about furious six or Fast and Furious six, as they’re interchangeably known.
Greg: You always follow what marketing tells you to do.
Joe: Yeah, I’m I’m a it’s.
Greg: Ridiculous.
Joe: Trying to say I’m brand. That’s what I’ve learned.
Greg: We should probably say, as always, spoilers for the movie.
Joe: For least six. Yeah. If you haven’t seen it, pause this episode, finish the movie, come back, and then take it up right, right where you left off. Everything will make sense.
Greg: Listener. If you have enjoyed this episode and we hope that you have, please go to whatever app you’re listening to this on and rate and review the show. If you don’t follow us, follow us on on the, on your podcast app. If you write a review, especially if it has some kind of inside joke, we will read that on the podcast when we see it.
Joe: Like and subscribe. We we love to hear from you. So tell us what you think and we’ll go from there.
Greg: Reach out to us, on Instagram. Great bad movies show on Instagram. You can find us on our website. Great bad movies.com. You can comment on YouTube or reach out to us. They’re all different kinds of ways for you to get. Yeah. For you to reach out to us, tell us what movie you think we should do.
Greg: Yeah, we really want to hear from you and let us know what you think we should cover.
Joe: Yeah, quite frankly, it’s on you if you if you if we’re not covering the movies, you want that it’s really your fault. So.
Greg: Oh, my gosh, I just saw the time. Listen, Joe, this has been great, but, I’m working in this pawn shop, and I think Vin Diesel just walked in. Oh, and I feel like he’s going to smash my face into the window.
Joe: Oh, yeah. Be careful. I, I had a similar issue with Vin Diesel because I had stolen his necklace by accident. It was a total mix up. But then, yeah, there was a whole incident. They threw me into a wall and I broke the tile on it and he took the necklace back. That’s right. That’s all. Sure make sense.
Greg: You know what? I have just realized that the country I’ve been living in has extradition.
Joe: Oh.
Greg: And if I learned one thing in these movies, that is a mistake. So I. I’ve got to go move to a different country.
Joe: Yeah, that that makes sense. Doesn’t make sense. I’m. I’m hiding at a tank right now, and I really hope it doesn’t get hijacked and used as a plot point in a and a long drawn out the car chase. So, you know.
Greg: That’s one of those things you hear about all the time, but you never really expect it to happen, you know?
Joe: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And here we are.
Greg: Okay. Well, that works for me because I have got this cross necklace that I feel like I need to get back to one of the members of the Fast Furious crew to help them with their next adventure.
Joe: Yeah, that that’s that sounds good. Weird. That’s weird. I’m getting call from Shea Whigham. He wants a royalty. Apparently, he’s not happy that we’re doing all of his movies on this podcast, so I’m going to have to sort this out. So I’ll be right back.
Greg: Okay. That works for me. You know what? Places always seem nice.
Joe: Oh, what what what’s that?
Greg: Tokyo. Oh, it seem pretty nice. I think I’m gonna go to Tokyo.
Joe: Oh, I hear great things about Tokyo, so that’s great. I’m. I am late for my voice lessons. I’m trying to lower them so that I can sound like vintage.
Greg: So I just realized we forgot to mention that, Paul Walker goes to visit the bad guy from Fast and Furious four.
Joe: Braga. Braga.
Greg: Oh my gosh, why isn’t Braga in every single Fast and Furious movie?
Joe: What a stupid little plot point that that was in this movie. Yeah.
Greg: Okay, so you need to go. I that actually works for me because my guy Roman needs to get a snack out of the vending machine over here. And so I think I’m just going to shoot it with the rock scanner object, open it up and let him get some snacks.
Joe: Yeah, that sounds good. That sounds good. I gotta go. I’m contemplating a philosophical question. Someone once told me that if you show me how you drive, you show me who you are. And I just don’t know who I am anymore. So, yeah, I got to go sort that out.
Greg: Okay, well, drive safe, and if you don’t drive safe, you know, drive fast. Yeah. The sooner. Well, that works for me, because I’m sure you’ve noticed. And I’m sure the audience has been able to hear. I’ve been, in a cargo plane this whole time.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: And, my friends are in this car that that’s under the plane. I think I’m going to jump out of here and jump into that vehicle real quick.
Joe: Oh, but that seems like a good idea. I’m realizing I don’t have a code, so I’ve got to go figure out what that is. A lot of a lot of pensive thoughts here. Family and position are already taken, so I’ve got to do some more research.
Greg: Maybe your code should be, less movies that are so pants optional.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. More pepper in my coffee, I don’t know. Oh. We’re happy.
Greg: You know, we didn’t talk about is the people forgot to wear pants in this movie quite a bit. Yeah. Is that the worst part of the Fast and Furious movies? I probably have options on this.
Joe: Yeah, I think you’re right.
Greg: All right, well, that works for me, Joe. So I will see you.
Joe: Awesome. I will see you soon.