DROPPING THE F&M-BOMB

It’s only been five seconds and Vin Diesel has already dropped the F-word. This should come as a surprise to no one; after all, he’s talking to Total Film about Fast & Furious 9 – the latest chapter in the full-throttle Fast Saga, and more than ever before family (what F-word did you think we meant?) is at the forefront of Diesel’s mind.

“The theme that we’ve been playing with up until this point has been the family that you create with people from all walks of life, the family that is not blood,” says Diesel with the sage-like sincerity of Dom Toretto himself. This may be a series that features skydiving supercars, submarine battles and, in Fast 9’s case ‘magnet planes’, but Diesel knows that the key to keeping audiences hooked is to make them care. “What makes the story of Fast 9 so fascinating is how that altruistic concept could neglect the family defined by blood. That’s where this story goes.”

There’s no use beating around the bush – or should that be skidding around the race course? – as, as revealed in the first trailer, Fast & Furious 9 isn’t just dropping a bombshell on the Fast Saga, it’s detonating a thermonuclear device: Dom has a hitherto unmentioned baby brother, Jakob, and with no love lost between the Toretto bros over their, let’s say ‘complicated’, family history, Dom’s due a reckoning.

“Helen Mirren has a great line in the film where she articulates that there’s nothing stronger than family, but at the same time, there’s nothing more dangerous,” Diesel points out. “That’s what makes Jakob so formidable.” As played family because he’s Dom’s flesh and blood. Jakob’s years in exile – the precise reasons for which are a closely guarded secret, but will be fully explored in the film – have given him the time and drive to forge himself into a one-man army.