Jason Statham Gets Furious

Furious 7 is out this week on Blu-ray and DVD and features Jason Statham as former British Special Forces operative Deckard Shaw, out to take revenge on the crew for what they did to his brother Owen (played by Luke Evans) in Fast & Furious 6. We've got a bonus clip where Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson talk about why Statham got the role and Statham reveals that he believes Deckard's military training put him one step ahead of Dominic's crew.

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The Fast & Furious series has established itself as the pinnacle franchise of Hollywood action movies in the 21st century, something no one could have imagined after the first two sequels. The dialog is simple enough to be dubbed into any language, the actors are having a great time and have learned to communicate mostly through glances and facial expressions and the action sequences continue to be outstanding. Kurt Russell joins the serious as a mysterious government agent. He has a great time spitting out his lines and chewing the scenery and he's likely to return in the inevitable Fast and/or Furious 8.

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The curveball here is the real-life death of Paul Walker during a break in filming. His brothers acted as body doubles to finish the movie and there are a couple of moments where CGI-generated Paul isn't quite realistic. Still, his character gets such a nice sendoff that it's hard to be too critical of a creative solution to an almost-impossible problem.

The Blu-ray comes with a extended cut that adds two minutes to the theatrical cut. There's an array of making-of documentaries, including several that break down the film's action sequences. It's not going to win any awards next winter and you aren't going to learn much that will prepare you for a special forces career from Jason or the accompanying documentaries, but Furious 7 keeps the winning streak going and it's one of those perfect visual wallpaper movies worth owning.