Random Ridiculously Stupid Plot Holes in Fast and Furious Movies (17 items)

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  (#1) Deckard Shaw Wins for Most Frequent Flyer Miles

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  Deckard Shaw is one hell of a super villain in Furious 7. Motivated, ruthless, impossible to harm, and able to jet around the globe as he pleases without the cumbersome burdens of long flights. You see Shaw in London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, back to Los Angeles, in the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia, and finally in Dubai, in the first half of the movie. For anyone keeping score, that's about flight 31,000 miles, and doesn't take into account time required for customs and ground transportation (Tokyo's airport, for instance, is about 40 miles from the center of the city). 

  One more note: Shaw engages in nothing short of terrorism in every location, but seems to have no trouble traveling internationally, at his leisure. He's either got the most reliable private jet service in existence, or his face is just too jacked up to register on any facial recognition software in any airport on earth.
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  (#2) What Ever Happened to Baby Leon?

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  Dom and Leon were like brothers. They came up together, built cars, raced cars, partied at Race Wars, and even stole DVD players together. They would have killed, or been killed, for each other. Leon was there from the beginning, from childhood. Brian wasn’t. Han came years later; so did Roman. All those guys, and more, are family to Dom. He’ll risk it all for them and then some. But Leon’s services and personality haven’t meant anything to Dom since 2001. Let’s hope Dom at least transferred ownership of Toretto’s Market & Cafe so Leon had something to live for.
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  (#3) Why Not Take Just the Radio?

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  Fast Five followed the newfound tradition of starting hard and fast. Dom, Brian, Mia, and even Vince join a crew of Brazilian gangsters to steal a handful of exotic cars off a fast-moving train. The twist? Dom and Brian don’t know the other gang’s lead man Zizi is after only a microchip hidden inside the radio of the Ford GT40 they’re after. Their collective plan is to cut off an entire side panel of the train with blowtorches, then wench each car to a flatbed ramp, and reverse them to freedom. All for a data chip inside one car’s radio. Everything is going smoothly, until it’s not, and the ensuing commotion garners the unwanted attention of some DEA agents onboard. Why not just send one guy on the train to steal the GT40’s radio? Without, you know, blowtorching the train while it's moving? 
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  (#4) Hobbs's Task Force Are Secretly Amazing Mechanics

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  After Fast Five’s high octane shootout foot chase through the Rio de Janeiro favelas, Hobbs and his team return to Dom and Brian’s abandoned hideout on a clue-gathering mission. It’s where they find the elusive Ford GT40 from the memorable train heist, only now it’s half disassembled. Hobbs follows his always-accurate instincts and knows he needs to put the super car back together to find out what Dom was looking for.

  Hobbs tells two of his guys to “put all this mess back together,” referring to the now half-built GT40. You can’t disobey Hobbs, so they oblige. Lucky for Hobbs, their entire adult life presumably spent in the military and then special task force law enforcement perfectly prepped them to be able to reconstruct a limited edition super car on the fly in a shanty hideout garage without any documentation manuals. Not only did they complete the task in a matter of hours, but the engine started up on the first try!
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  (#5) A Yakuza Boss Takes Input from an American Teenager

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  Yakuza is a flexible term used to reference members of one of several Japanese crime families that came to prominence after WWII. Those gangs try to mask their origins behind legitimate businesses, but they are largely still involved in serious, criminal activities ranging from extortion to drug trafficking and prostitution. Some members apologize to their leaders by amputating their own fingers.

  You have to wonder why, in Tokyo Drift, Sean Boswell is able to waltz into a private club and directly approach a yakuza boss, in order to apologize for causing business losses, and explain that he plans to make up for it by racing the boss’s screw-up nephew, DK. After all, what better way to catapult a yakuza crime family into the 21st century than to let an American kid in high school tell you how to run your business?

  There's also that scene in Tokyo Drift where Sean gets thrown around by a fat dude in a bathhouse. 
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  (#6) How Does Cipher Get On And Off Of Her Plane HQ?

  In The Fate of the Furious, the villain Cipher lives on a 787 with two giant satellite dishes that constantly circles the globe, undetected by any and all government agencies. She seems to get off and on the plane at will, but there's no footage of the plane docked at an airstrip, and there's no scene where she takes a small plane out of the big plane to get to her earthly destinations. Although, at one point the plane does touch the ground for about 10 seconds so Dom can drive into it. Other than that, it's in the air the entire time. Who is refueling this plane mid-flight? And when does it get the constant upkeep that a plane needs to stay in the air? How do they get food on there? The fans of the Furious need answers.
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  (#7) The Laws of Physics Have No Place Here

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  In the Caucasus Mountain sequence in Furious 7, Dom out-maneuvers Deckard Shaw and Shaw’s vehicle goes tumbling down the mountainside. He quickly jumps out, sprints a few hundred yards at high elevation, and assembles his rifle just in time to get Dom’s car in his sights. Miraculously, Shaw is aiming downward at Dom’s car, even though he just tumbled down the near-vertical mountainside.

  In Fast 6, the C-5 Galaxy airplane at the end barrels down a runway for longer than 12 minutes at takeoff speed, which would require a runway more than 20 miles long. In Tokyo Drift, Clay throws a baseball at Sean Boswell’s car hard enough for glass to shatter into the driver seat, but the baseball rolls off the trunk and onto the pavement, rather than going through the windshield. And yet, in 2 Fast, Brian and Roman can’t even capsize Carter Verone’s yacht by launching a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro at it going 120 mph! Losers.
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  (#8) There's Good, and There's Ludacris Good

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  Tej has worn many hats over the years. We first got to know him in Miami, where he spent his days organizing and taking bets on jet ski races by day and illegal street races by night. He even had Jimmy at his garage to help customize electrical systems on cars. Eight years later, in Fast Five, Tej was born again, capable of hacking practically anyone and anything, customizing car builds, and even cracking an industrial safe fit for a bank.

  By Furious 7, Tej was unstoppable. Not only did his hacking skills increase exponentially, so did his mechanical engineering prowess. The day before Dom, Tej, and the gang head to the Caucasus Mountains at the behest of Mr. Nobody, Tej completely deconstructed two existing vehicles and built an entirely new car Dom desperately needed for the mission. He also had just enough time to outfit the other cars with parachute rigs synchronized with GPS that perfectly integrated to their needs. That one-night timeline would’ve been impossible for a lesser man, but not for Tej.
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  (#9) Brian O'Conner: Zero to Hero in Six Minutes

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  Ever wonder how Brian went from a rookie with a heavy foot to a world-class street racer with skills Ayrton Senna would envy? Wonder no more. Turbo Charged Prelude to 2 Fast 2 Furious is a six-minute short film (with no dialogue) that tells the tale of how Brian made his way as a fugitive from Los Angeles to Miami, perfecting his driving skills on the way. Or does it?

  The short amounts to little more than Brian flashing his million-dollar smile and fifty-cent haircut as he splits his time between racing and hitchhiking east. Minka Kelly even gives him a ride at one point… although they don’t talk much. Brian keeps playing the underdog in races and collects stacks of cash, and upgrades rides so successfully he finally rolls up to Miami Beach in a Nissan Skyline. But how did all that accelerating in straight lines get him the skills to leapfrog his car over another car over an opening bridge?
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  (#10) Hobbs Answers to No One

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  Hobbs (THE ROCK) took the franchise a new level of ridiculous action sequences and sizzling one-liners. Hobbs is the DSS Elite Task Force’s team leader, and shows up in Brazil in Fast Five intent on apprehending Dom and Brian. After he loses all of his men in an ambush, Hobbs uncovers a shared understanding of moral fiber with Dom, and focuses his brand of justice on those responsible for killing his team. 

  What does this entail? Well, he helps jumpstart Dom and Brian’s $100 million heist, murders a guy point blank, and lets Dom walk free. Or at least gives him a pretty liberal head start. Hobbs commits the same crime Brian did in the original film, then went even further into the moral gray zone. However, Hobbs answers to no one. His intentional blind eye to Dom's escape from Rio is never questioned, nor is his blatant cowboyification of subduing terrorists in Spain in Fast 6 and downtown Los Angeles in Furious 7 by any means necessary. Does he just not have a boss? Like, seriously, what the hell is going on?

  When will Hobbs’s reign of unchecked mayhem be brought to an end?
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  (#11) 150mph Makes Your Floorboards Fall Off (Except It Doesn't, Actually)

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  It’s easy to forget just how green Brian O'Conner was the first time he raced the Dominic Toretto in The Fast and The Furious. Sure, Brian had some racing chops, but he knew he’d need more than that to be competitive. Against sage advice, Brian insisted he be given two giant NOS tanks for his first big race. Well, he got what he wanted, but at what cost? Brian’s unflinching ambition to win sparked a catastrophic chain of events once he reached 150mph. Innumerable machine screws and flat washers spewed from his car’s passenger-side floor, causing a ruckus that ended with gravity getting the best of the floorboard.

  Apparently installing those NOS tanks inextricably wove the vehicle’s powertrain and passenger-side flooring together. 
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  (#12) There's a New Real Estate Developer in Town

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  If you lived in Shangri-La Estates, you’d be home by now. Actually you wouldn’t, because you can’t even tour a model home in Shangri-La Estates until the entire development is finished. Apparently, the investors aren't interested in filling homes with hardworking middle-class families. In Tokyo Drift, our man Sean Boswell races against the formidable Clay for the ultimate prize.

  Thankfully, Shangri-La Estates is close by the high school, and conveniently abandoned in the middle of a perfect-weather weekday. All it takes is a pair of bolt cutters for half the high school to cruise down an empty street adorned with dozens of houses in the exact same stage of construction.
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  (#13) How Do You Smuggle 20,000 Gallons of Gas Off an Island?

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  It’s fairly obvious Fast & Furious was a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart of the franchise. It was the perfect melting pot of old faces and new, and literally jumped straight into the action with a high-speed fuel tanker heist in the opening scene. Dom and his crew are so quick on the draw, stealing tankers of gasoline, they never stopped to ask, “what are we going to do with it?” They're in the Dominican Republic, which together with Haiti makes up an island nearly nine times smaller than Texas. Word probably gets around fast about a heist like this. 

  The same night partygoers pump stolen gas directly from the tankers to their trademarked cars, Han tells Dom the cops are hot on their tails. So how do you transport, sell, or hide 20,000 gallons of stolen gas? Dom didn’t know, so he ran away.
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  (#14) Rio de Janeiro Police Cruisers Are Dodge Chargers

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  There isn’t a one-two punch that destroys property more efficiently than Brian O’Conner and Dom Toretto, and their capabilities came to screen in spectacular fashion in Fast Five. Once they set their sights on mega crime boss Reyes, Rio didn’t stand a chance, and neither did the brave officers of the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro State and their Dodge Charger police cruisers. They simply couldn’t keep up with the ferocity and speed of our favorite villains heroes, even though they had American muscle on their side. Maybe it was the manual transmissions the Rio cops just couldn’t master. Either way, shortly after the events of Fast Five, Rio’s police union announced they will be accepting new bids for their next official police cruisers.
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  (#15) Brian O'Conner: Lawman and/or Outlaw

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  The original Fast and Furious film is pretty clear on which side of the law Brian is on until the very last scene. He’s a fugitive at the onset of the sequel, but is recruited back to the FBI under close supervision. He clears his rap sheet and leaves as a civilian at the end of 2 Fast, but when see him again in Fast & Furious he’s now a full-fledged FBI agent… and still has a soft spot for Dom and Mia.

  By the end of the fourth film, Brian can’t resist the urge of the outlaw life, and really goes rogue by helping with Dom’s jailbreak. After orchestrating a $100 million robbery and wrecking half of Rio de Janeiro in Five, Hobbs finds him and Dom in Spain in Fast 6 and recruits their services to help bring down the particularly menacing Owen Shaw, Deckard Shaw’s younger brother. After millions in damages to London, Brian is still close enough with agents at the FBI to help arrange a meeting between him and a Cartel boss in a super-max prison in the US. 

  After Brian and Dom lay waste to London, Spain, Los Angeles, and Dubai, it seems Brian will remain a lawman turned-outlaw-turned-civilian. Meanwhile, the rest of us risk devastating penalties for unpaid traffic violations.
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  (#16) The Third One Isn't Called '3 Fast 3 Furious'

  The first one was The Fast and The Furious. The second one was 2 Fast 2 Furious. The third one was... Tokyo Drift? What? Seriously? Way to crap the bed you filthy turd donkeys.
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  (#17) Carter Verone Needs More Men On His Crew

  • Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

  In 2 Fast 2 Furious, antagonist Carter Verone had a waterside mansion in Miami, a fleet of high-end cars, and the stunning Monica Fuentes at his side. What else could he need in life? How about some lowly henchmen to handle his dirty work? In a scene that was surely meant to display Verone’s sadistic tendencies, he “tortures” crooked Detective Whitworth in the VIP lounge of his own nightclub. Verone enlists the services of a rather lackadaisical rat to do the heavy lifting, and Fuentes to use her bare hands to cover Whitworth’s blubbering screams.

  When it’s all said and done, the rat leaves nothing more than a few scratches on Whitworth’s abdomen, and Fuentes’s hands are all but covered with the detective’s saliva. If Verone had a few more men, maybe one of them could’ve done some real damage to Whitworth, and his trophy concubine wouldn't have even had to witness the “torture,” let alone participate, and get her hands all gobbed up.

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