Hobbs and Shaw is fast and furious fun

This film’s Sunday name is Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw which is a cumbersome and slightly obvious way of tying it into a 5 billion dollar franchise. The notion that a film starring two of the biggest action stars in the business needs a bit of superfluous branding to guarantee box office success is just silly.

The reviews will be sniffy but the men and women behind Hobbs and Shaw – because, be honest, that’s what everyone is calling it will be laughing all the way to the bank. This is a film that promises exactly what it delivers and exactly what the audience wants, and that is a sure-fire recipe for success.

Apart from the fact that Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) are key characters in the Fast and Furious franchise – in fact they gave it a much-needed shot in the arm when they turned up- there’s not much to connect this to the source material. This is more along the lines of vintage Eighties buddy action cinema. Tango and Cash (1989) comes to mind and that’s fine by me.

The plot, such as it is, concerns a deadly super-virus which threatens all mankind. Our polar opposite heroes form a mismatched team to prevent the bug from falling into the hands of genetically-enhanced supervillain Brixton (Idris Elba). The bigger issue is that the virus is currently in the blood stream of Vanessa Kirby, playing Shaw’s sister Hattie, and they have only 72 hours to extract it and contain it safely.

It’s all so much nonsense, as most of these plots are. What matters here is the execution and this is a first class example of 21^st century action cinema. The heroes are oversized, the script is appropriately bantery, the stunts are spectacular, and the craft skills involved are highly impressive. A shout out too for the Glasgow locations which look impressive and seamlessly integrate with the other footage.

This is a film that does exactly what it says on the tin and that’s exactly what I want to see at this time of year.

Johnson and Statham are very good at doing what they do. They each exude their own particular brand of macho without too much difficulty. The real issue with the film for me is Idris Elba who is something of an empty suit as the bad guy. While Johnson and Statham provide a casual sort of stardust, Elba is just trying too hard.

The bad guy is a plum part in an action movie – think Alan Rickman or Jeremy Irons in the Die Hard franchise for example. Here Elba stands around spouting some heavy handed exposition and the film passes him by; it’s a role anyone could play.

The one standout performance for me – apart from two knock-out surprise cameos – comes from Vanessa Kirby as Shaw’s sister. Just as in last year’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout she is the buffer zone for all this testosterone and again does it very well.  Her character has agency in her own outcome, doesn’t need any rescuing, and contributes on the same level as the others – we could do with more of that.

The one thing that did strike me about Hobbs and Shaw and Mission: Impossible for that matter is how irrelevant they appear to have made the Bond franchise. The current James Bond movie is beset by all sorts of unfortunate problems but to be honest if it was never released, I don’t think I would miss it.

The Bourne series along with Fast and Furious and Mission: Impossible have reinvented themselves for contemporary audiences. Bond still seems mired in the 20^th century so perhaps it’s time to hang up his shoulder holster and make way for the inevitable Hobbs and Shaw franchise.