Film / Fast X

Spoilers for all The Fast and the Furious movies preceding this one, including Fast Five, Hobbs & Shaw, and F9 will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

Not all races can be won.

"Winning used to be about winning. We raced for respect. Today, I race to stop the bloodbath."

— Dominic Toretto

Fast X (or Fast & Furious 10) is a 2023 action film and the tenth mainline installment of the franchise The Fast and the Furious. It was directed by Louis Leterrier and released in theatres May 19, 2023.

Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew find their peaceful lives thrown into chaos once again with the emergence of a new enemy, Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa), whose criminal kingpin father they brought down in Rio twelve years ago. Now, with his team scattered across the globe, Dom faces his greatest challenge yet as Dante prepares to take what is most precious to him: his son.

Returning cast members alongside Diesel include Michelle Rodriguez as Letty Ortiz, Jordana Brewster as Mia Toretto, Tyrese Gibson as Roman, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges as Tej, Nathalie Emmanuel as Ramsey, Sung Kang as Han, Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw, Charlize Theron as Cipher, and John Cena as Jakob Toretto. New additions to the cast alongside Momoa include Brie Larson, Daniela Melchior, Alan Ritchson, and Rita Moreno.

Though initially planned to be the final film in the series, Vin Diesel pushed for there to be an eleventh film in the series to serve as the ending instead. At the premiere of the film, Diesel revealed that the the eleventh film will not be the ending after all, as there will also be a twelfth film that will conclude the main story of the franchise.

Previews: Trailer 1, Trailer 2

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Fast X contains examples of:

• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Japanese version uses "F&F (Family and Friends)" by JP THE WAVY and Awich as the theme song.
• Always Save the Girl: During Dom's race with Dante in Brazil, Dante forces Dom into a Sadistic Choice by rigging a bomb under both Diogo and Isabel's cars, the two other racers, and sees that Dom only have enough time to save one of them. Dom chooses to save Isabel, who at that point is still a stranger to him, instead of Diogo, Dom's longtime friend since his heist in Rio ten years ago. Granted, Isabel's car is closer to him than Diogo's and that Dante never have any intention of sparing either of them, but Dom still chooses to save her first, causing his friend Diogo to be the first to get killed by Dante's bomb.
• And Starring: With Helen Mirren / With Brie Larson / With Rita Moreno / And Jason Statham / And Jason Momoa / And Charlize Theron.
• As Himself: The tourist couple Jakob and Brian bump into in the airport are played by and credited as Debby Ryan and Josh Dun.
• Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: The bomb at the start of the film is called out as a neutron bomb and it successfully detonates in the middle of Rome with stated yield of 20kt. Yet although this is a device that is specifically designed to kill people within a few miles with lethal neutron radiation there is no further reporting on what would have to be mass deaths in Rome and Dom, who was only a few hundred feet away, does not even suffer radiation sickness.
• Artistic License – Geography: the path the bomb does in Rome doesn't make any sense. Some of the locations it goes through are not connected at all.
• Back for the Dead: Diogo, the former Rio racing champ and Dom's Brazilian friend, returns for the first time since Fast Five only to become a victim of Dante's crusade to psychologically break Dom.
• Back from the Dead: At the end of the movie, Cipher and Letty are picked up in a submarine by a very much alive Gisele.
• Black Comedy: Dante painting the toenails of a dead man. He keeps another corpse with a taped up face and chats with them like they are gossiping at a salon. And then he proceeds to hack the Toretto gang's funds while keeping the same mood.
• Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: The movie ends with most of the team possibly killed while Dom and Brian Jr. are trapped at the base of a dam that is about to explode.
• Bring It: The final lines of dialogue in The Stinger reveal that Dante's next target is a certain individual who also had a bad history with his family. That individual's response?
  Luke Hobbs: Well, I ain't hard to find... you sumbitch.
• Bridal Carry: Dom carries Tess this way to the car after she had been shot in a highway gun fight.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Little Nobody, who was absent in F9, reappears to assist Dom and Letty save the rest of the Family in Rome.
  • Gisele Yashar appears at the end, making her first proper appearance in the franchise since Fast & Furious 6.
  • After sitting out F9, Luke Hobbs returns to the mainline series in The Stinger since his absence in the last film, where he finds himself as Dante's other target of vengeance for personally killing Dante's father ten years ago. Luke's response is simply telling Dante to Bring It.
• The Cameo: Meadow Walker, the real-life daughter of Paul Walker, shows up in one scene as a flight attendant who helps out Jakob and Brian Jr. to escape from the Agency's agents pursuing them as they're traveling on a plane.
• Car Fu: During the climax, when his car is harpooned by two helicopters while chasing after Dante on a bridge, Dom gets rid of the choppers by driving off the bridge, causing them to smash together. He then proceeds to use the flaming remains of the choppers as makeshift flails against Dante's goons, which even Dante admits was pretty cool.
• Casting Gag: The fact that Aimes and Dante were working together means Arthur Curry and Arthur Curry are working together.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Dom's tendency to this is exploited by Dante.
  Dante: You know what your problem is? Family. You can't save them all.
• Cliffhanger: Dom's story in the film ends on a classic one, with Dom and Brian trapped at the base of a dam after narrowly escaping a planned explosion from two remote gas trucks, but now left with no car. Dante then activates a series of bombs to destroy the dam and flood the river, with the screen cutting to black just as their detonation countdown hits 0.
• Cool Uncle: Jakob's one to Little Brian.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • When Cipher's goons turn on her, she activates a command to shut down all their weapons.
  • In a more comedic example, when Dante drains all of the funds from all their bank accounts, Roman reveals he's strapped multitudes of dollar bill stacks on himself.
• Creative Closing Credits: The credits play over underwater recreations of the movie's events, with explosions surrounding them.
• Deconstruction: A surprisingly brutal one for The Power of Family the series infamously runs on. Dante Reyes takes advantage of Dom's love for his family to manipulate him and his team at every turn, separating them from each other and weakening them. Dom's wide circle of friends and allies around him only means more people that Dante can use to threaten and torment him, and no matter how badass Dom is, there's no way he can save them all. Above all, Dom's habit of making allies out of his former enemies gets turned on its head when Aimes not only merely pretends to join Dom's side, but is actually The Mole for Dante all along, something both Dante and Aimes mock Dom for believing. This even applies to other characters, too. Roman and Tej, as close as they are throughout the series, get into a quite serious feud that lasts for much of the film when the former's It's All About Me attitude is pushed a bit too far, and it's only resolved when both of them accept their own flaws and forgive each other.
• Designated Girl Fight: There is one between Letty and Cipher at the Agency black site in Antarctica.
  Cipher: Good morning, sunshine.
  Letty: God damn it.
• Enemy Mine: Cipher teams up with Dom after Dante turns her mercenaries against her. She even paraphrases the situation by saying that "the enemy of my enemy is [Dom]."
• Evil Is Hammy: Dante. Your average delicatessen has less ham.
• Eviler than Thou: Cipher finds herself upstaged by Dante when the latter casually strolls into her base and blackmailed her mercenaries to turn on her. She barely made it out alive and seeks Dom - of all people - for his help, realizing that Dom and his family are her best chance to get even with Dante. To say that both Dom and Letty are not amused is an understatement.
  Cipher: I met the devil tonight. Honestly, I always thought it was me...so that's kind of disappointing.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Little Nobody talks to Dom and Letty on the attacks and how they don't have eyes on the rest of the team.
  Little Nobody: Any idea where they could be?
  [Dom and Letty exchanged baffled looks]
  Dom: In Rome. Where you sent them.
  Little Nobody: We don't have a mission in Rome.
  Letty: It's a setup.
• Fate Worse than Death: Pretty much Dante's motivation against Dom and his family. He doesn't want them dead, at least not before he could torment them as much as possible psychologically by threatening to hurt the people they care about and turn the entire world against them by branding them terrorists. This even applies to his own mercenaries, who were Cipher's former mercenaries that he blackmailed to work for him under the threat of killing their loved ones. After he feels Dom has suffered enough and is in a position where he, and his son, have zero chance to survive, Dante prepares to finally finish them both.
• Fire-Forged Friends: It's noted that Dom has a tendency to form lasting bonds in the chaos of danger, and history repeats with Aimes. It's also exploited and subverted; Aimes is actually The Mole for Dante, and Dante set the situation up to place Aimes by Dom's side counting on this tendency.
• Foreshadowing: There are multiple hints throughout the film that Aimes is The Mole for Dante.
  • The film opens with a person wearing blue sitting in Hernán's office, who is never introduced. Throughout the film, Aimes is most often seen wearing blue.
  • The Family is lured to Rome with a fake job from the Agency before Dante steals Cipher's tech.
  • Ramsey explicitly wonders how Dante is doing any of this alone.
  • During the conflict on the bridge, snipers target Tess, Aimes and Isabel at Dante's orders. While Tess is severely injured by a shot to the shoulder/chest, Aimes is hit in the only part of his body he's got armor on.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: After the first act, the team is separated and the film ends up juggling four different arcs: Dom in Rio; Letty and Cipher in the Agency's Antarctica base; Roman, Tej, Ramsey, and Han in London; and Jakob and Brian's road trip to Portugal.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Elena Neves's files on Dante show that he was arrested for drug trafficking, manufacturing, car theft, assault with a deadly weapon and resisting arrest in the year/month leading up to the events of Fast Five.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the third act, Jakob sacrifices himself to save Dom by ramming his missile-laden car into Dante's remaining mercenaries, allowing Dom to continue pursuing Dante.
• Hope Crusher: Dante's plans to hurt Dom repeatedly give him a chance of victory, only to snatch it away in as cruel a manner as possible. This culminates with the showdown on the dam, where even Dom's triumphant escape from certain death leads him into another trap.
• Hypocrite: Aimes, the new head of the Agency, denounces Dom and his team as nothing but criminals and acts as though it was inevitable they would do something like the Rome attack on their own rather than openly acknowledge that they were framed. He then encourages the use of criminal informants to find the team, essentially condoning the very acts he allegedly condemned Nobody for. Then the ending reveals that he has been Dante's mole all along, working for an even worse criminal for a decade.
• I Have Your Wife:
  • This is how Dante gains control of Cipher's former mercenaries, by abducting all of their families and forcing them to work for him under pain of their death. The one "sad sack" who doesn't even have a pet, he decides to kill that one.
  • Dante kidnaps Isabel, Elena Neves' sister, to force Dominic to confront him, triggering a chain of events that lead him to acquire God's Eye.
  • While he gives them equipment and transport, Deckard doesn't care about getting involved in the Family's fight with Dante until Ramsey reveals that he has targeted his mother.
  • The climax of the film has Dante target Little B and eventually abduct him, leading to a car chase between Dom and Dante.
• It Was a Gift: Invoked almost word-for-word by Aimes when a group tries to steal his watch to distract him from following Dom.
• Licking the Blade: At one point, Dante licks one of the blood-coated knifes he's holding after killing a guy.
• Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: Dom points out to Dante that attempting to come after Dom while Dom is inside a car all but guarantees that Dom will survive. Except Dante planned for that, forcing Dom to sacrifice the car to escape one trap only to land in another.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Deckard delivers one to Han, assuming the latter has come for revenge for the events of Tokyo Drift despite his protestations to the contrary. It takes Agency soldiers storming the place to direct his violence elsewhere, and he cools down afterwards, even saving Han a couple times during the skirmish.
• Non-Action Big Bad: For all his savagery, Dante actually does very little fighting throughout his screentime. While he does put up a good fistfight against Dom during the bridge shootout, he otherwise relies on assistance from either digital technology, his exceptional getaway driving skills, or mooks he coerced into being loyal to him.
• The Nothing After Death: Dante talks about this when talking about his near-death experience.
• Once More, with Clarity: Done twice with the same scene.
  • The entire opening of the film is showing the climax of Fast Five with the revelation that Reyes had a son who was present on the bridge and survived being knocked into the water.
  • Then we're once again shown the vault heist, this time from Dante's perspective when he reveals that Aimes was there too.
• Outliving One's Offspring: The film introduces Dom, Mia and Jakob's paternal grandmother, who outlived her son, Jack, years ago. By the end of the film, she has (possibly) outlived Jakob, her grandson, too, with her other grandson, great-grandson and others she clearly considers her non-biological grandchildren in explicit mortal peril.
• Outrun the Fireball:
  • In the first act, Dom outruns a 20kt nuclear device with just a few seconds to go. Without even a lead lined fridge to protect him, just a car.
  • Dom does it again in the final act, while driving down a dam to escape two exploding gas trucks.
• Party Scattering: After the events at Rome, Letty is captured by the Agency and sent to a prison in Antarctica, Roman, Tej, Ramsey, and Han escape to London, and Dom goes to Rio de Janeiro to meet up with Tess. Meanwhile, Mia returns home to warn Brian after she and Brian Jr. are ambushed by the Agency, and Jakob subsequently takes the latter to Portugal. As a result, the team is separated for most of the film, having their own plot arcs. It's later revealed that Dante purposefully scatters them all so he can take them out one by one, knowing that they are much stronger together.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: A first for the franchise! Jakob dies in a Heroic Sacrifice to save Dom, which proves fruitless as the film ends with Dom and his son completely at the mercy of Dante and Aimes as they prepare to blow up the dam that would flood the valley Dom and Brian are trapped in. The plane Tej, Roman, Han, and Ramsey are on was shot down with no indication if they make it out alive. Tess is heavily injured earlier in the film. Even if they all make it out alive somehow, they're still branded terrorists by the international community after Dante frames them for the devastating bomb explosion in Rome. The only silver lining is that Letty and Cipher managed to escape the Agency's base and rescued by a very much alive Gisele, and the post-credits scene show that Luke Hobbs will come into conflict with Dante, meaning a powerful ally of the Fast crew will come to their aid in the future. Deckard is also still alive, and could provide assistance with how Dante is targeting his mother for survivors of the crew.
• Red Herring: There are a couple of mentions regarding Mr. Nobody, who went missing in the previous film and remains M.I.A. for this film, that make you think he will show up later on somehow. He does not. However, it does make the reveal that it is Giselle Yashar (who is not mentioned at all in this film) being the one saving Letty and Cipher all the more surprising. However, it serves as a Call-Back to Film/F9 when Giselle is explicitly mentioned as having worked with Mr. Nobody.
• Remember the New Guy?:
  • The film reveals that Dante was present during the team's heist at Rio ten years ago, and was actually there during the confrontation at the bridge where his father, Hernán Reyes, was killed.
  • The fact that Elena Neves had a sister is not mentioned in previous films.
  • The film introduces Mr. Nobody's successor, Aimes, who has been apparently a step behind Little Nobody within the organization for a while, but never mentioned, even when both Nobodies are absent from Film/F9
• Revision: This film retroactively establishes that during the events of Fast Five, Hernán Reyes was in the active process of making a deal with Aimes that would allow him to eventually obtain influence within The Agency and gain global power for his family, connecting what was otherwise an Arc Villain to the overarching plot of the series.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Dante is hunting down Dom due to him causing the death of his father Hernán Reyes in Fast Five, and wants to destroy Dom's family the same way he took his own father away from him.
• Sadistic Choice: During the street race in Rio, Dante forces Dom to choose between saving his Brazilian friend Diogo, or Isabel Neves, the sister of his former lover Elena Neves. He chooses to save Isabel, but Dante decides to trigger the explosives in both cars. While Isabel survives, Diogo doesn't.
  Dante: Trick question, everyone dies!
• Sequel Escalation: The insane degree to which this trope is in play in the Fast & Furious franchise receives an entire scene to lampshade it, with Aimes pointing out how Dom and his crew went from boosting trucks in LA to boosting nuclear submarines, breaking "every law of God and gravity" in the process.
• Sequel Hook: In The Stinger, Dante's lair is raided by a militant squad, which finds a phone that Dante promptly calls, telling the person answering that he's coming for him next. That person is none other than Luke Hobbs, the one who killed Dante's father in Fast Five; his response is simply that he won't be hard to find. It's since been confirmed that Hobbs will be starring in A Day in the Limelight film following directly from this scene, serving as a bridge between this film and the upcoming eleventh installment in the main film series.
• Sissy Villain: Dante, all the way. Most of his outfits are effeminate (all with matching manicures) but his pink bathrobe with purple nail polish takes the cake. He also has a very zesty personality. This doesn't make him any less scary, what with his skills at manipulation by targeting the loved ones of those he wishes to suffer.
• The Stinger: There is one during the credits. Luke Hobbs investigates Dante Reyes' property in Rio and receives a call from him, saying that while Dom was the one who stole the Reyes' safe, Hobbs was the one who actually killed his father Hernán. When Dante taunts him by saying that he is coming for him as well, Hobbs tells him to Bring It.
• Token Evil Teammate:
  • Dom's crew recruit Deckard Shaw in their battle against Dante to gain access to cars and guns after the latter drains all their funds and uses it to hire mercenary groups around the world to hunt the Toretto clan and all their allies down. When this leads his mum, Queenie, to be a target, Deckard is more than happy to assist, while venturing off to protect his own family.
  • Cipher, once the Greater-Scope Villain of the franchise, ends up being an unlikely ally as she helps Letty escape the Agency's black site prison, clearly feeling like It's Personal against Dante.
• Took a Level in Badass: Ramsay has at least acquired a certified skill in improvised weaponry, being able to knock out one of Dante's mercenaries out cold with her laptop computer.
• Vanity License Plate: In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot, the license plate on Deckard Shaw's McLaren reads RO4D RGE.
• Villain Opening Scene: The first scene is a flashback to the climax of Fast Five, done from Dante's point-of-view.
• Wham Line:
  • Just as it seems Dom and Brian are in the clear, their paths at the dam are blocked by remote controlled trucks and Dante appears.
    Dante: Did you really think it was going to be that easy?
  • During The Stinger when Dante reveals he's not just out for revenge against Dom, but someone else as well who's been absent from the series for a bit.
    Dante: Dom may have driven the car... but you pulled the trigger.
• Wham Shot:
  • As Dom's team fly towards him, their plane gets struck by a missile shot by Aimes revealing himself to be the mole for Dante all along.
    Aimes: (after shooting the plane) See, that's the problem with having a big family. Can't protect 'em all.
  • As Letty and Cipher trek across Antarctica to safety, a submarine emerges from the ice to reveal Gisele.
  • A meta example is definitely the post-credits scene revealing Luke Hobbs, given that the famously acrimonious relationship that Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel developed during the shooting of Furious 7 - a situation that saw both men refuse to shoot any scenes together in The Fate of the Furious - seemed to ensure that fans would never see the character in the main franchise again.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Dom's team kills a large number of Agency mooks throughout the film, but Aimes is able to seemingly change sides without any concern for those deaths.
• Where It All Began: Dante ambushes the convoy escorting a captured Dom on the same bridge where Dante's father died ten years ago, loudly noting how they've come full-circle. Dante is even wearing roughly the same color-scheme outfit as he was that day, white and tan.
• Would Hurt a Child: Dante has no qualms about kidnapping Dom's son and having him involved in a dangerous car chase.
• Xanatos Gambit: Dante always seems to have a counter ready for anything Dom and his team attempts, allowing even seeming failures to further his plan. Dom's seeming defeat of Dante during the final chase was merely part of guiding him to the dam Dante had already prepared to kill Dom and his son.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Dante forced a pair of techies to help him during the attack on Rome. When they're next seen, Dante has killed the two and propped them up on chairs as he's figured out how to use the tech without them.
• You Killed My Father: Dante is after Dom, his friends, and his family to get back for their involvement in the death of his father Hernán Reyes in Fast Five.

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♫ But I won't back down (Oh, oh yeah)
And now I feel my hands tremblin'
Oh, Lord, ain't no promise I'll breathe again
But I won't back down. ♫

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