Fast & Furious 8 (2017)

After watching Fast & Furious 8 I wasn't sure what to write about it. Movie series is at point where they have got the formula and put out new movies every now and then. It had problems but I mostly enjoyed it. After watching several Vin Diesel movies during one weekend I was in correct mood for this. XXX: The Return of Xander Cage brought that franchise closer to later Fast & Furious movies.

Then I realized what the message was. Fast & Furious 8 should have subtitle In Group Bias The Movie. I don't think movie was meant to be this clever. They told more about their world view than they meant to. It is not just one thing where this happens. It is during the whole movie and with main two characters. Group bias means we don't judge people in our group as hard as people who are not in our group. You can see this everywhere and it is big problem.

Dom is blackmailed to turn against his family. He gets Rock to be caught be police and go to jail. He steals Russian nuclear launch codes. He goes to steal Russian nuclear submarine with nuclear missiles. When he gets back to correct side at the end everything is forgiven. One character makes joke about the situation. You could say this is normal action movie stuff where heroes have different standards than others. But same thing happens to one other character too.

Jason Statham was villain of Fast & Furious 7. He killed at least one of Dom's group and destroyed their house. The movie is not available on my streaming services so I can't check everything he did in that movie. In this movie he joins "the good guys" and everything is forgiven. Again once someone joins the group everything is forgiven. This gives good picture of some people's world view. They are willing to forgive monsters and blame the victims as long as the monster is part of their own group.

Embracing in group bias wasn't the only questionable message. There literally is a female character whose role is to give birth to Dom's son and then die so she won't be problem to Dom's and Letty's relationship. In this movie heroes actions have no consequences. She hasn't even given first name to the son because she thinks Dom should do that as a father. She didn't even want to get between Dom and Letty. She would rather have been single mother. Another reason to kill her of because those are evil to people who wrote this movie.

But wait there is more. Mr Nobody and Rock instructs Little Nobody how world works. Their third rule is there are no rules. You can do anything without consequences because you are saving the world or something like that. Good to add that with all the other questionable messages. Fast & Furious 8 tells lot about some people's world views in 2017. For that reason we shouldn't forget this movie.