Fast & Furious 7

Making movies is about story telling; how good a story teller are you? FF7 was impressive. It was a roller-coaster ride from start to finish. There is very little to fault in this movie, it doesn’t give an inch. But this is how it should be. There’s a lot of mediocrity in movie making out there, sadly a lot of it is in the big budget category of movies. It’s a relief FF7 escapes this mediocrity. When you want the brawn it’s there, when you want the scary it’s in your face, when you want the sexy the movie brings it all on a tasteful platter of furious wheels and you’re left licking the flavour off your fingertips, a finger at a time, wondering what’s for desert. It’s very well put together. This is what we go to the movies and hope to see. It’s what we hope to feel when we are exiting the cinema doors, entertained. This is how blockbusters are made.

For the next FF8 movie I would suggest possibly one of the best movie story telling action strategies I have ever seen. To date I have not seen any action movie top this composition. Which is it? It’s from the movie, The Warriors (1979).  Dominic Toretto's team or family, in the viewer’s mind right now occupies pole position as the best fictional posse of drivers in the world. The audience is viewing this from planet Toretto, but the directors should consider lifting the cameras higher up to reveal that in the world of fast cars there are a great many rough riders, some who are also legends, who would give team Toretto a run for their money and send chills down their spines. How do you do this? You use the Warriors formula. We know in the Fast and Furious franchise that there are meets were races take place. Imagine a world challenge that brings together drivers from the whole world, from every continent to compete in some exotic location, in a remote part of the world. The race car teams are the equivalent of gangs in the Warriors formula. The race car teams, even the worst rivals, are brought together by some charismatic leader all the race teams are willing to set aside their differences for, look up to and revere: the Cyrus figure. At first when they arrive at the competition its paradise, they are in the land of milk and honey as different crews and former rivals get close and make friends with Toretto's family. This is an opportunity for the director to introduce different racing crews to the audience. During an awe inspiring event a rogue race car team deliberately takes out or injures “Cyrus” and Toretto’s team is falsely accused or left with the literal "smoking gun". They now have to drive back home through several continents, countries and territories to get back home in the US. This could take the teams through African Savannah and game parks where wild animals (lions, leopards, elephants, buffalo, rhino etc roam), across deserts where they face nomadic roadsters, up towards north pole where they have to battle through the ice and snow, across cities in Canada and so on. In each of these is a once friendly, but now hostile race car team; the audience should be introduced to some of the teams during the Cyrus milk and honey phase. During the milk and honey phase competition and exploits is important to show that some of these crews are world class, such that they even best Torreto's crew at some stunts and races, This is so that when when they now meet some of these now hostile crews in the real world after the Cyrus controversy the first reaction of the audience is "oh no! not this crew!." This is so that Torreto's team can show the audience, that unlike a controlled competition environment,  no one can beat them in a no holds barred real world face off where nerves of steel are required - no matter how bad-ass they think they are. Some of these teams feel betrayed. They became their friends or friendly because of Cyrus, but they now despise Toretto's crew for what they have "done" or are accused of doing. They  try to take them down for the "Cyrus" crime and team Toretto have to use all their wits, fighting for their very lives against different race car teams, in different countries and continents each with its own team mates with characters and skills that directly rival Toretto's team.  

Like Toretto’s family the leader in every other team they are up against is a prodigy except that in one team it’s the tech guy, in the other it’s the joker/entertainer who's the prodigy that leads the team, in another it’s the strong female. As the team struggles to defend itself, after missteps,  it should emerge that the person in Toretto's team most like the leader in the opposing team is the only one able to successfully predict , on the fly, what he or she will do next and offer multiple stage counters that saves lives in Torreto's team. In other words each member of Toretto’s team has to reluctantly step up and take charge when the leader marshaling a crew  they are up against is a master of a specific skill or quality that forces Toretto’s team to step behind the FF8 family member whose expertise is required to save them from the hostile prodigy trying to prevent them from getting home. Along the way there are unexpected allies who help them out or shelter them and hostiles after their blood thrown into the mix as the media tracks the flight of Toretto's team back to the US. On the last league of the escape they are up against a team where the race team leader is a prodigy that is in many ways like Toretto. It should never be forgotten by the directors that throughout the movie the FF8 team is fleeing and every race car team they get through is survival. Make them have to improvise and acquire or modify different cars as they progress towards the US. One of the team can be captured along the way making them have to double back much to the audience’s frustration. The audience should feel and see that the relief will take place only when they arrive in their neighborhood back home.

The fact that they are thousands of kilometers from home, in parts of the world they are totally unfamiliar with makes it possible to include interesting angles such as trying to figure out where they are, getting lost, trying to read maps that make no sense, plotting the shortest route and sometimes having to take the long way around to avoid a country with a notorious crew that catches upto them anyway.

Now that would be interesting..

RIEP..Paul Walker….