A Celebration Of Dom And Letty, Cinema's Most Chemistry-Free Epic Romance Ever
It should go without saying at this point that the "Fast & Furious" movies are a franchise like none other. At a moment when complaints about an overabundance of VFX and threadbare blockbuster scripts feel like they're at an all-time high, audiences just keep turning out to see what ridiculous stunts and brazen action sequences our favorite gearhead family will attempt next. In defiance of the industry's assumption that only a very specific kind of demographic can lead big-budget ensembles, the impressively diverse main cast have set a high bar that most others have failed to reach. And as much as we may crow about the dying era of the movie star — and, with it, the dearth of genuinely crackling on-screen romances — these movies are here to remind us of everything we miss about star-driven spectacles and epic love stories ... but only by delivering arguably the most unconvincing central relationship cinema has ever seen.
Look, there's no way to tiptoe around it. As much as these movies fly high on their commitment to fast cars, furious amounts of action, and shockingly earnest and endearingly cheesy themes about family, there remains a complete and total charisma vacuum at the center of it all: Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto and Michelle Rodriguez's Letty Ortiz. Ever since 2001's "The Fast and the Furious," we've constantly been told one thing about this supposedly torrid lifelong romance and shown another thing entirely. And when multiple movies attempt to define Dom's main motivation through his attachment to Letty, well, sooner or later we're simply going to have to call bull****.
But here's the twist: We wouldn't want it any other way! Inexplicably, the almost total lack of chemistry between our two star-crossed heroes has become a feature, not a bug. Let's celebrate why.
Fast & Furious: Endgame?
As avowed fans of the "Fast & Furious" movies, we know a thing or two about exercising our suspension of disbelief. Want me to go along with NOS propelling cars like the Millennium Falcon entering hyperspace? Sure thing! Dom suddenly and inexplicably acquires Sherlock Holmes-like powers of deduction and never uses it again? Right on. But when the franchise keeps trying to sell the idea that Dom and Letty are endgame and always have been, that's when things get a little dicey.
For instance, it's absolutely hilarious to go back to the original movie and realize just how much Dom acts like he can barely even tolerate Letty's presence. Part of it, admittedly, is just the overall testosterone-flooded meatheadedness of the early aughts. Apparently, being "macho" demanded that the mysterious, too-cool-for-school Dom must constantly flirt with other women and generally act aloof about Letty's affections, while she gets all jealous and protective. But there's also the amusing wrinkle when Paul Walker's Brian O'Conner discovers from Mia (Jordana Brewster) that Letty and Dom grew up together and were essentially childhood sweethearts. Say what?! If that were true, then I have to wonder why Brian and Mia display more chemistry in their very first scene together — where the former asks the latter for a bad tuna sandwich with the crust cut off, mind you — than we ever get from Dom and Letty.
That's hardly the franchise's most head-scratching choice, however. It isn't until 2009's "Fast & Furious" that we even get a single meaningful dialogue scene between just Letty and Dom alone. And remember, that's only moments before Dom runs away and abandons her ... and then she "dies" soon after. Yeah, we should talk about that, too.
Ride or die
Casual fans may not fully grasp just how absurd Letty's history in the "Fast & Furious" timeline has been over the years. A bizarre off-screen "death" early on in one movie, a shocking tease in the post-credits scene of the next, and another entire movie built to somehow explain that retcon only scratch the surface of the winding journey Letty's experienced since first arriving on the scene with Dom back in 2001.
That's what makes it so wild that, for three films in a row, the Letty/Dom dynamic takes centerstage. In "Fast & Furious," Dom runs away to Panama alone in a well-intentioned attempt to keep her and his fambly out of harm's way from the authorities hot on his trail. He soon receives word that she apparently died after getting mixed up in some bad company and spends the rest of the story on the warpath to get some good ol' fashioned revenge. When Gal Gadot's Gisele arrives on the scene and immediately makes advances on Dom, he can't even fathom the idea of a casual fling when he's so hung up on the death of his one and only. What a romantic!
Naturally, things only get weirder from there. It takes all of one sequel for Dom to then fall for Elsa Pataky's Elena, bonding over their shared loss of previous partners. (Once again, we must point out another pairing that feels much more convincing than any of Dom's romantic pursuits: Sung Kang's Han and Gisele falling in love in five minutes during "Fast Five" because *checks notes* they drive really well.) When Letty shows up again as an amnesiac antagonist in "Fast & Furious 6," the sparks finally start flying — but only literally, when she fires a bullet into Dom's shoulder.
Never turn your back on family
As it turns out, maybe fans only needed to wait until the seventh total movie for the epic love story to finally start making some sense. It doesn't help much that Vin Diesel just sort of grimaces at Michelle Rodriguez throughout all their scenes together, even in ones where they're supposed to be all hot for each other. (Did nobody do chemistry reads back during casting on the original movie??) But perhaps the writing finally caught up with the franchise's well-intentioned ambitions in "Furious 7," which devotes some overdue screen time to the idea that Letty should probably recover all her old memories if they ever want to make things work.
The movie begins with Letty struggling with the fact that she doesn't remember any of her last 15 years with Dom ... which is ironic, because audiences never got to see much of that, either. Maybe that's why the movie bends over backwards to basically have the power of love heal her amnesia, which builds to the absolutely incredible reveal that she and Dom had a secret Anakin/Padme-style wedding that nobody ever knew about. Oh, and all this somehow saves Dom from certain death by the end of the movie. It's wild, folks.
Yet by the end of it all, the sheer stubbornness of everyone involved to make this work might've actually Stockholm Syndromed fans into buying into this romance. Sure, the ending moments of "Furious 7" only underline what the true focus should've been all along, as Dom and Brian took their last drive together and crystallized the fact that their relationship was always the true heart and soul of the franchise. But part of being a "Fast & Furious" fan means celebrating the highs and lows — especially Dom and Letty.