(There’s a paramilitary “50 First Dates” embedded in the action.)Īfter Deckard steals data from a shadowy security bureau and tries to blow up Brian and his family, the Furious clan-including the tech genius Tej (Ludacris) and the showman Roman (Tyrese Gibson)-return to action for one more mission. Meanwhile, Mia’s brother, Dom (Vin Diesel), is married to Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), who suffers from amnesia and can’t remember their romantic past.

Yet it’s also the tale of two marriages: Brian (Paul Walker) is married to Mia (Jordana Brewster) and struggling with his new role as domesticated father to their young son, Jack. Two stories overlap: the war of a British bad guy, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), against the entire Furious crew, and the war of a terrorist, Mose Jakande (Djimon Hounsou), against America and the world. As such, it’s a brazen caricature of passions and virtues, but its superficial exertions tap deep into a core of raw feeling and give it a benignly vigorous shape. It exhibits simple joy in its intricate cleverness, and sincere wonder in physical action, the primal heat of family bonds, and hearty humor under pressure. Just as some movies by the most distinctive directors also prove to be profitable, some movies made as part of a baldly commercial slate also have artistic merit-and James Wan’s “Furious 7” is among the latter. The industry approaches its commercial base with an unabashed forthrightness and leaves the sophisticated audience to independent producers and the audacious directors whose work they finance.īut a film’s place in a production schedule is no limit on its results.

The liberated Hollywood of recent years is liberated in two directions: toward the conspicuously personal and idiosyncratic (as in the films of Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, and Terrence Malick) and toward the nakedly mercantile (as in the “Fast and Furious” series). In the good old days, movies such as “ Furious 7” didn’t exist, because studios made major movies for adults and relegated teen fare to marginal sensationalism.

Furious 7 instal the new