Furious 7

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

The latest installment of the Fast & Furious Series, Furious 7, was released this past weekend. Now I will admit, I am a bit biased because I've been a huge fan ever since I saw the first film, but the box office numbers can speak for the films success. According to the Hollywood Reporter, in less than a week the film has made over $489.5 million, including $315 million internationally and $174.5 million domestically.

As a huge fan of this series, I really only had one complaint. For a series that is based around, and really got it's start by focusing on car racing, this installment had very little of it. The film was taken up by mostly guns, fighting and big explosions. Don't get me wrong, I've come to expect this is most new action films, but when it overtakes what a good portion of the series is about, then I think it becomes too much. On the plus side, the movie did retain it's string family aspect, which is something I have always enjoyed. The chemistry between the real life cast always has an incredible way of being portrayed on screen, and the movies push of strong family morals and values has always been something I've held close to my heart.

 

Regardless of the rest of the movie, I was incredibly touched by (and cried through) the tribute to Paul Walker at the end of the film. I was curious how the story would be adapted after his death, and the four months that the studio took to figure it out really showed. The end of the script and the song used was their way of being able to finally say goodbye to him, in the most heartfelt and loving way that a movie could.

Based on a True Story

We've all learned that movies are never completely original. They're either based on a comic books series, television show, or books. And you can always trace back movies and relate them to many other things. One of the most common movie themes are true stories. However, movies never seem to be able to depict the actual real events. Here's a perfect example of a movie that was based on a true story, that wasn't even accurate:

Pain & Gain

We all know the black comedy pretty well; it's a bunch of buff dudes that start killing people that started off as an accident and got out of control, just to get money. However, that whole scenario wasn't so accurate. The movie was loosely based on articles from the The Miami Times featuring the murders of the Sun Gym Gang. The survivor of the kidnappings and tortures, Marc Schiller, was never contacted during the making of the film. He confessed that the movie got all the characters wrong. In fact, the Sun Gym Gang wasn't just three members, it was instead a much larger group.

                     

                             Dwayne Johnson (Paul Doyle)

Carl Weekes

 Dwayne Johnson's character (Paul Doyle) doesn't even exist in real life, and was actually composed of three different guys: Jorge Delgado, Carl Weekes and Mario Sanchez. There is also a scene where Doyle robs an armored truck and gets a toe shot off. That scene? Entirely fictional. And those gay references that affected Doyle's life? Completely made up by Hollywood. 

                  

                       Tony Shalhoub (Victor Kershaw)

Marc Schiller

Marc Schiller was the survivor of the gruesome kidnapping in real life. But in the movie, Victor Kershaw (Marc Schiller's character) is nothing like the real deal. In the movie he's seen as a brash person, living the life and smoking cigars. In reality, Schiller was a humble man and had a family to take care of, not a house full of women in their bikinis. He also wasn't a rich scumbag, but instead owned a failing deli franchise that still gave him seven figures in the bank. Hollywood did this in order for the audience to sympathize with the killers, instead of the kidnapped. Kershaw also never hit Daniel Lugo with his car in the Bahamas, which we saw towards the end of the film. None of that happened. The task force just arrested Lugo in a hotel. And if we really wanna get picky with how accurate the film is, Schiller was never buckled up in the car when the gang attempted to kill him. He actually jumped out of the car before it hit the pole, and then was ran over twice with a Camry, not a van.

This is Rebel Wilson's character in the film. I'm not even gonna explain this.

What does make matters worse about this movie is that the filmmakers turned a real life event that affected a lot of people, into a comedy. As Schiller says, the only accurate thing about the movie is the title: "My pain really did result in a lot of people's gain. Especially Hollywood's."