Editor’s Note: Freeline Media critic Mike Fried has delivered his thoughts on the new film The Furious. He admits its one viewers are likely to either love or hate – so what’s Mike’s verdict? Read on!
By MIKE FRIED
THE FURIOUS
4/5
An ordinary mute handyman, Wei, teams up with a journalist, Navin, to rescue Wei’s daughter and Navin’s colleague/wife who have been kidnapped by traffickers. He reports it to the police who won’t agree to jump on the tip because they have a process to follow. Only afterwards they find out that Wei has an unknown past.
That’s all you need to know plot-wise. Except that both Wei and Navin have “special skills.”
You’re either going to love this movie or not appreciate this movie, and it depends on your personal preference. I really enjoyed it.
This is a film that follows in the footsteps of movies like Kill, The Raid and The Raid 2 where the plot is merely a device that’s an excuse to orchestrate highly choreographed, bloody and kinetic action scenes which are highly enjoyable — while defying the laws of science. For example, when Wei is chasing the truck his daughter’s kidnappers are driving, the chase stops when he gets hit by a car. You and me, that’s lights out … but, as Eddie Murphy said in Trading Places, “Karate Man bruises on the inside.”
It’s an interesting choice to make the character of Wei a mute. What this does is increase his character’s frustration and focuses it inward, rather than having a lot of shouting matches, especially when the police tell him there are procedures and they can’t prioritize his case.
I don’t know Xie Miao, who stars as Wei, but he’s outstanding in his role. Joe Taslim, playing reporter Navin (who has appeared in The Raid, The Night Comes for Us and Star Trek Beyond) is equally terrific as Navin. And they make a perfect team.
But a kinetic action film like this would not be complete without Yayan Ruhian as a bow-and-arrow-wielding henchman. Not only does he possess equal martial arts skills to Xie and Taslim, his grinning malevolent visage just adds so much to this film and the films he has been in like The Raid and The Raid 2. His most noticeable part to date was in John Wick 3 as one of the Shinobi that attacks Wick in the glass enclosed room. Brian Le, who choreographed the action scenes in Everything Everywhere All At Once, is my favorite character in the piece. He plays Ho, one of the henchmen. You can hit him in the head with a sledgehammer and he is fine, but he loses it emotionally when his Boss, whom he sees as a father, is found murdered.
The action choreography is first rate and is accompanied by top notch special effects, sound design and editing that makes the film feel immersive. You feel as if you’re there with every punch thrown and every leg kick and every bottle thrown. And the set pieces are equally terrific. When you think the movie is coming to a conclusion, it becomes Assault on Precinct 13 with a mind numbing 20-minute ballet of violence in the police station.
I only wish I saw this film in a packed theater because I am sure the audience response would have added a lot to the enjoyment of the film.
Still, WATCH IT!
Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.
Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.
