The Fate of the Furious (2017) Review

April 22, 2026

On honeymoon in Havana, Dom Toretto races a loan shark to save his cousin's car. F. Gary Gray's The Fate of the Furious then turns him against his own team, as the cyberterrorist Cipher coerces him into stealing weapons for her across Berlin, New York and Russia.

At a Glance

Director: F. Gary Gray
Runtime: 136 minutes
Starring: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Charlize Theron, Scott Eastwood
Release: 2017
Critics Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, ambitious but uneven)
Audience Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, entertaining despite its limitations)

Plot

Gray directed from a script by Chris Morgan, and the hook is simple: what happens when the man who preaches family betrays it? Hobbs recruits Dom's team to retrieve an EMP device in Berlin, Dom steals it at gunpoint during the getaway, and Hobbs ends up in the same prison as Deckard Shaw.

Mr. Nobody breaks them both out, and the story becomes a hunt. Deckard reveals that Cipher hired his brother Owen and Mose Jakande in earlier schemes, the team loses God's Eye in an attack on their base, and the reason for Dom's turn is finally revealed: Cipher is holding Elena Neves and the baby son Dom never knew he had.

My view is that the premise is stronger than its execution. Dom's divided loyalty should give the film a moral knot, but the script resolves it with a rescue mission carried out offscreen by the Shaw brothers, which makes the hero a passenger in his own story. The finale on the Russian ice, with a submarine chasing the team, is fun but noisy.

Characters

Vin Diesel plays Dom as grim and silent for much of the film, which suits a man acting under duress but limits what he can do. His best moment is wordless: the look on his face when Elena is killed in front of him.

Charlize Theron's Cipher is cold, patient and contemptuous, a villain who prefers to work from the safety of her plane. Theron makes her quietly frightening, though the script gives her more speeches than actions. Jason Statham brings a dry wit to Deckard, and his raid on Cipher's plane with Owen to rescue the baby is the film's most enjoyable stretch.

Dwayne Johnson's Hobbs gets a prison breakout and plenty of one-liners, and his bickering with Statham is the liveliest double act in the picture. Michelle Rodriguez's Letty refuses to believe Dom has abandoned her, which gives her the story's most sympathetic role. Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris provide the comic relief, Nathalie Emmanuel's Ramsey handles the hacking, and Kurt Russell and Scott Eastwood play the Nobodies as cheerful bureaucrats.

Meaning / Themes

The film wants to test its own creed. Family has been the series' watchword, and here a hostage child is used to show how that loyalty can be turned into a weapon. Dom's choice to protect his son is understandable, but it cuts him off from everyone else.

Redemption is the other thread. Deckard, once the team's enemy, ends the story accepted into the group after saving Dom's son, and the film asks the audience to forget his past with remarkable ease. It is a generous ending and a convenient one.

Cipher represents a different kind of power: surveillance, remote control and cyberwar. Against her, the team's reliance on physical driving skill feels almost old-fashioned, which is part of the point.

Direction

Gray handles the large-scale action with confidence. Stephen F. Windon's photography gives Havana a warm, sunlit texture, and the opening street race, which Dom narrowly wins before letting his cousin keep the Impala, is a playful start. Filming took place in locations including Mývatn in Iceland, Havana, Atlanta, Cleveland and New York City.

The New York sequence, built around Dom's hunt for a nuclear football held by the Russian Minister of Defense, is the most inventive set-piece, with the team chasing their own leader through the streets. The ice finale is bigger but less clear, with the submarine and the cars blurring together.

Brian Tyler's score is loud and functional, and the editing keeps the long running time moving. The effects are polished, though the scale often outruns the sense of weight.

Final Verdict: a loud, entertaining spectacle that tests the series' idea of family and then retreats to safety. Critics were mixed, enjoying the cast chemistry and the action while finding the story overstretched. Statham's rescue mission on the plane is worth the ticket on its own.