WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for F9, now in theaters.
In the Fast & Furious universe, the trope that’s been used to death is unquestionably that of redemption. We’ve seen it with the Shaw brothers, who went from being enemies to key allies in Dom’s team. Letty got hers after losing her memory and turning evil. And Dom himself became a hero after being a thief in the first film. However, this has become a tired gimmick that really takes away from the gravity and theme of consequence in the series. And as much as one would hope F9 bucks this trend… well, it doubles down in the worst way possible.
It happens with John Cena’s Jakob Toretto, Dom’s little brother, who spends most of the film as a terrorist and former operative for Kurt Russell’s Nobody. He starts off as an agent, then flips, opting to work for Otto and kidnapping Cipher so she can’t scupper their plans of using Aries, a program that’ll give them control of the world’s weapons systems.
The thing is, knowing that he’s related to Dom, the film foreshadows that it’s just a matter of time before Jakob joins the heroes — evident by Mia, their sister, believing there’s good in him. Sadly, this creates such a predictable journey, which is made even worse by the execution of the switch. It occurs when Jakob’s told by Otto, as they truck through Tbilisi, to check the satellite uplink. He gets to the top, only to be attacked by Otto’s henchman.
What makes this so laughable is that there’s no motive here that makes this twist sensible. Otto’s suddenly working with Cipher, but he has no reason to abandon Jakob as Jakob’s gotten the job done. More so, Cipher has shown that she’s a snake in the grass so why would he want to switch to her? Jakob ends up getting kicked off the truck but Dom and Mia save him, giving him his own car. He then rallies with the crew to take Otto and Cipher down, with Dom allowing him to escape at the end as the authorities and rivals will be coming for him.
This is an odd choice, as mere moments before Jakob was trying to bring about the apocalypse. Plus, he almost murdered Dom’s crew several times and showed no sign of ever wanting to fight for the light. He even sulked seeing Dom and Han reunite, so there’s jealousy, anger and all signs that he was always meant to be a bad seed. Jakob joining is just for revenge so there’s nothing altruistic about it, which again feels like the franchise is repeating the Deckard Shaw schtick. This crafts a disappointing and underwhelming finale, forcing emotional sentiment when there’s none really.
Sure, Jakob was forced by his dad to alter his car, thus causing the life-ending incident and familial divide, but there’s nothing there to push him to turn into an international killer, even after Dom exiles him. The series should have kept him as a villain, maybe even teaming with Cipher once Otto dies, to add intrigue, mystery and unpredictability for the remaining movies.
It’d also have kept testing Dom’s resolve and showed him that family isn’t just salvation, mirrored by his worst enemy being the brother he rightfully discarded. But through this creative approach, all F9 does is produce another rogue who doesn’t resonate as much in terms of sympathy.
Directed by Justin Lin, F9 stars Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, John Cena, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jordana Brewster, Sung Kang, Helen Mirren, Kurt Russell and Charlize Theron. The film is in theaters now.
About The Author
