MOVIE PREVIEW –  The synopsis: No matter how fast you are, no one outruns their past. F9 is the ninth chapter in the Fast & Furious Saga, which has endured for two decades and has earned more than $5 billion around the world.

VIN DIESEL’s Dom Toretto is leading a quiet life off the grid with Letty and his son, little Brian, but they know that danger always lurks just over their peaceful horizon. This time, that threat will force Dom to confront the sins of his past if he’s going to save those he loves most. His crew joins together to stop a world-shattering plot led by the most skilled assassin and high-performance driver they’ve ever encountered: a man who also happens to be Dom’s forsaken brother, Jakob (JOHN CENA, the upcoming The Suicide Squad).

F9 sees the return of filmmaker JUSTIN LIN, who directed the third, fourth, fifth and sixth chapters of the series when it transformed into a global blockbuster. The action hurtles around the globe—from London to Tokyo, from Central America to Edinburgh, and from a secret bunker in Azerbaijan to the teeming streets of Tbilisi. Along the way, old friends will be resurrected, old foes will return, history will be rewritten, and the true meaning of family will be tested like never before.

The film stars returning cast members MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ, TYRESE GIBSON, CHRIS “LUDACRIS” BRIDGES, NATHALIE EMMANUEL, JORDANA BREWSTER and SUNG KANG, with Oscar^® winner HELEN MIRREN, with KURT RUSSELL and Oscar^® winner CHARLIZE THERON.

They are joined by Fast fan favorites DON OMAR, LUCAS BLACK, SHAD “BOW WOW” MOSS and JASON TOBIN as well as new additions to the ensemble including ANNA SAWAI (Ninja Assassin, series Giri/Haji) as Elle, a highly skilled fighter guarding an important secret, THUE ERSTED RASMUSSEN as Otto, a budding despot who’s working with Jakob Toretto, and Grammy-winning superstar CARDI B as Leysa, a woman with a connection to Dom’s past. The film also features a cameo by Reggaeton sensation OZUNA.

Based on characters created by GARY SCOTT THOMPSON, the story is by Justin Lin & ALFREDO BOTELLO (consultant, Star Trek Beyond) and DANIEL CASEY (Kin). The screenplay is by Daniel Casey & Justin Lin.

The F9 creative departments are led by a top-flight veteran team, each with deep roots in the Fast franchise. The music for the film is by returning composer BRIAN TYLER, who has composed the score for five Fast Saga films, and the returning costume designer is SANJA MILKOVIC HAYS, who has designed the wardrobe for all nine Fast films. The editors are DYLAN HIGHSMITH, who worked on the previous four Fast films, KELLY MATSUMOTO ace, who edited three previous chapters, and GREG D’AURIA, who worked on two previous installments.

The production designer of F9 is Oscar^® nominee JAN ROELFS (Fast & Furious 6) and the director of photography is STEPHEN F. WINDON acs, asc, who served as cinematographer on five of the six most recent Fast films. The film’s longtime picture vehicle coordinator DENNIS McCARTHY has served that role on six previous Fast titles, as well as on 2019’s Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. The second unit director and stunt coordinator is SPIRO RAZATOS, who has worked on every Fast film since 2011’s Fast Five.

F9 is produced by franchise producer NEAL H. MORITZ, p.g.a.; Vin Diesel, p.g.a., who has produced every Fast film since 2009’s Fast & Furious; Justin Lin, p.g.a. (executive producer, Fast & Furious 6, Fast Five), JEFFREY KIRSCHENBAUM, p.g.a. (The United States vs. Billie Holiday, xXx: Return of Xander Cage), JOE ROTH (Maleficent franchise, xXx: Return of Xander Cage), CLAYTON TOWNSEND, p.g.a. (Fast & Furious 6, Bridesmaids) and SAMANTHA VINCENT (xXx: Return of Xander Cage), who also served as executive producer on the past five Fast titles.

THE BACKSTORY

Family Secrets, Unanswered Questions

Justin Lin Drives Fast in a New Direction

For writer-producer-director Justin Lin, who returns to the franchise for his fifth turn behind the camera with F9, his Fast homecoming was joyful, but unexpected. Lin had not directed the two most recent films, and although he had maintained his relationships with producer and star Vin Diesel and the Fast family, it wasn’t until an original, innovative idea for the franchise took hold of him that he thought seriously about returning to the Fast clan. “I never expected to come back,” Lin says. “I thought that the saga we had explored in the four films we had made together was it for me. But one morning I woke up and I was just inspired by the fact that there is something more to the Fast mythology that we should explore. What I love about the Fast franchise is that the films have never been the same story over and over again. They’re always moving forward. That’s great, but I thought there was an opportunity to create a film that took the eight previous films and put them together in a way that answered the big questions that Fast fans have wondered all these years, questions that have remained unanswered … until now.”

 This meant diving deep into the previously unexplored backstories of the franchise’s most beloved characters, and delving into themes of fatherhood, brotherhood and betrayal. “It was important to me that this next chapter emotionally be the connective tissue for the whole saga,” Lin says. “Thematically, I felt we needed to make a film where the characters had to come to terms with their pasts so that they could have hope for the future.”

At the center of that emotional exploration, of course, is Diesel’s Dom Toretto, who, through the arrival of his estranged brother, Jakob (John Cena), is forced to confront some of his most private and painful memories. In F9, we learn how Dom became the man he is, and why family, both chosen and biological, is so essential to him. “What F9 does is shed light on how Dom has managed his vulnerability his whole life,” Diesel says. “That’s what’s so fun about the evolution of this character, because it’s something that we all can identify with.”

As the film begins, Dom is at a crossroads. Fatherhood has shifted the focus of his adrenaline-fueled existence to a more sedate life off the beaten path. Living on his farm with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and taking care of Little Brian brings a wealth of new responsibilities, and while Dom feels the weight of it all, Letty, too, is struggling in her new role. Their relationship is feeling the strain and is thrown into further chaos with the arrival of Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), who inform Dom and Letty that the plane of Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) has gone down in the Central American jungle with the notorious Cipher (Charlize Theron) in his custody. The team has come to Dom and Letty expecting the couple to join them and get back into the espionage game. Letty is up for it, but, to everyone’s shock, Dom opts out.

“When we have children, the stakes are higher,” Diesel says. “Now everything Dom does, he has to consider the true source of his vulnerability: his child. It’s not that Dom is ecstatic about living on the farm. He’s governed by necessity. There’s a lot of unfinished business in this world that he’s been living in. A lion is vulnerable because of its cub, and that’s who Dom is. In order to protect his cub, this is the sacrifice he makes.”

What fans will come to learn over the course of the film is exactly why Dom is so emphatic about protecting his son and worries about leaving Little Brian without a father. “When we catch up with Dom at the start of F9, he has taken the path of the retired gunslinger who’s looking for peace and a little bit of solitude,” says Lin’s fellow screenwriter Daniel Casey, who conceived the story of the film with Lin and Alfredo Botello. “After the events of The Fate of the Furious, it’s become clear now that Dom has powerful enemies and so he’s looking to keep his family safe at any cost. The idea that one day he may wind up killed on a mission that’s too dangerous and not be there to see his son grow up is always in the back of his mind.”

What Dom discovers, of course, is that you can’t avoid your destiny, or your past, no matter how hard you try, or how great the risk. “There are many interesting aspects of this storyline that are going to surprise our audience and unravel more of the identity of the characters that they’re so familiar with,” Diesel says. “For Dom to be a father in the truest sense, he has to go and revisit his past.”

For Lin, F9 would once again push the boundaries of the hyper-real driving and fighting action that fans have come to expect, but it would also challenge the cast, most of whom have inhabited their characters for close to 20 years.

“We are really going to push our characters and their emotional arcs to the limit,” Lin says. “I think that has always been the secret to the phenomenal success of the Fast franchise. I know people talk about the action, but really, at its core, it is about all these characters evolving and taking them places emotionally that no one has ever seen before.” Lin’s plan would once again elevate and energize the franchise by juxtaposing thought-provoking themes and plot twists with innovative action.

The cast, it’s fair to say, was blown away when they finally got their hands on the script, not least because of the jaw-dropping revelations that Dom and Mia (Jordana Brewster) have a brother—a dangerous one, at that—and that Han (Sung Kang) is alive.

“’A long-lost Toretto?! And he’s the villain?!’” Chris “Ludacris” Bridges remembers thinking when he first read the screenplay. “That’s what excited me most when I first read the script. Han’s return was a close, close second. I knew fans were absolutely going to lose their minds when they found out that Sung had come back. I was ecstatic. Sung is just a great person all around; his energy is phenomenal.”

For Jordana Brewster, the revelation of another Toretto sibling was a welcome piece to the puzzle of the family backstory that shed light on Dom and Mia’s origin story. “The Toretto family has always been a mystery, so to have those pieces filled in after so many years is really interesting to me as an actress,” Jordana Brewster says. “It informs where Dom’s been coming from all these years, and then you understand, all the more, the importance of the makeshift family they’ve brought together. By adding the Jakob element, now we get to explore all that and try to reconcile the past and a possible future. Mia has a lot invested in the outcome as well, so she’s also very wary of how Dom handles the news.”

And, of course, the cast was thrilled to be working with Lin again. Led by Diesel, one of the franchise’s principal architects for the past two decades, the cast fully embraced the return of the visionary director who transformed the series into a global blockbuster. “To wrap up this era of the saga I knew I needed the longest-running director in the franchise as my partner,” Diesel says.

THE LOCATIONS

London, Edinburgh, Thailand, Tbilisi and Los Angeles

Full Throttle Global Action

            Several years after the extraordinary, record-smashing opening of The Fate of the Furious, production on the long-awaited ninth chapter, F9, began in London during summer 2019.

As is the Fast way, multiple film units began filming simultaneously across the globe. While Justin Lin was overseeing the main unit with principal cast in the U.K., second unit director and stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos and veteran Fast second unit stunt coordinator ANDY GILL and their crew led the charge in Thailand with the film’s hard-driving, gravity-defying action.

“We have always been at the forefront of producing groundbreaking action, and that process is very important for me,” Lin says. “Technology has evolved so much. I saw we could really push that envelope, and I was very inspired by the possibilities. I feel very fortunate to have this amazing crew and an amazing cast and Universal’s backing of saying, ‘Let’s do this the right way.’”

Veteran producer Clayton Townsend oversaw film production and managed the multiple film units shooting across the globe. F9 marks Townsend’s third tour of duty with Lin in the series. “Working with Justin Lin again on his return to the franchise has been such a treat for me,” Townsend says. “He’s still an inspiration to me and the crew. Everyone just can’t help but rally around him and help with his vision. There are hundreds if not thousands of passionate, hard-working people involved with this production around the world, and they are all working together toward the same goal of making the best film in the series. We couldn’t have done it without them. As jaded as I’ve become after 30 years of producing, I’m continually inspired by the madness and the spectacle that these productions roll out. It takes a dedicated and talented crew to make it happen.”

Bold, over-the-top, hyper-real action has become the hallmark of every Fast film, and F9 ups the game yet again. “For every Fast film we follow what we call ‘The Gattaca Rule’: Leave nothing for the swim back,” producer Jeffrey Kirschenbaum says. “In other words, we approach every new Fast movie as though it were our last and we don’t hold back on anything when it comes to coming up with new and inventive ways to integrate cars with action. Long story short—there is no such thing as too crazy or too big when it comes to Fast.”

The film’s opening action sequence, set in Central America, was actually filmed by the second-unit team over an eight-week period in several remote areas of southern Thailand. The crew then decamped to the country of Georgia to film in the capital city of Tbilisi.

While the majority of filming took place on soundstages, a dedicated U.K.-based stunt unit filmed through the streets of London, traversing through the city’s most notable landmarks. They then spent close to four weeks on and above the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland, capturing dizzying rooftop action as Dom chases Jakob while Roman, Tej and Ramsey pursue Otto and his hired mercenaries speeding through the streets. The two-pronged action sequence ended up being one of the biggest film production presences in Scotland’s capital city, filming along the Royal Mile, St. Giles Church, and the National Museum of Scotland, among others.

Lin and Vin Diesel, along with Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel and John Cena, joined them for almost a week to film in some of the historic city’s most iconic sites and cobblestoned streets. Tourists, locals and unsuspecting fans who stumbled upon the film unit got to hear the rumble of Dom’s Mid-Engine Charger or catch a glimpse of their favorite actors filming steps away from their tour buses or cafés.

Once filming concluded in London and Tbilisi, cast and crew made one more stop. Both on-screen and off, in the Fast films all roads lead home, and both main and second units returned to Los Angeles to film for the remainder of principal photography. On the last night of filming, Lin, joined by Diesel, returned to the streets of East L.A., where it all began.

Source: Universal