Few film series ever reach nine movies with (mostly) the same cast, which makes ‘F9: The Fast Saga‘ a rare thing. Released in 2021 for the franchise’s 20th anniversary, returning stars include Vin Diesel (Dom), Michelle Rodriguez (Letty), Jordana Brewster (Mia), Tyrese Gibson (Roman), Ludacris (Tej), and Sung Kang (Han). While most films give audiences two hours with a character, fans have followed the Fast family for two decades, and the series has become central to car culture around the world.
The early films were all about street racing—gospel to gearheads. By the later installments, the Fast & Furious series had evolved into a soap opera on wheels, complete with familiar tropes: Letty’s sudden amnesia (F&F 6), Dom’s secret son (F&F 8), and the bad-guy-turns-good arcs of Owen and Deckard Shaw (F&F 6-7-8). And yet, the wild action and car-crazy stunts keep it endlessly watchable, while bringing in billions at the box office.
In F9, the story digs deeper into Dom Toretto’s past and how he became the patriarch of the fast family. Through flashbacks to his teenage years, the film looks in the rearview to better understand the man he is now. The central twist lands early: the new villain stealing weapons of mass destruction is Dom’s younger brother, Jakob (John Cena). As a teenager, Dom exiled Jakob, blaming him for their father’s death at the racetrack.
It’s a major reveal, because Dom’s entire identity is built on family; yet he turned his back on his own blood.
Dom, long portrayed as an unshakable patriarch, is revealed here as a flawed hero—a man who couldn’t live up to his own code when it mattered most: “You don’t turn your back on family” Jakob isn’t just a standard villain, but a dark reflection of Dom himself, the product of being cut off from family, the very thing a Toretto values most.
Late in the film, the truth about their father emerges. Deep in debt, he made a desperate decision to bet against himself and asked Jakob to help throw a race. The plan went wrong, and the fatal crash wasn’t betrayal but a tragic miscalculation. Dom eventually realizes that even if Jakob had been guilty, a true Toretto patriarch would have stood by his brother. Their reconciliation is handled with simple, effective symbolism: Dom hands Jakob the keys to his Dodge Charger, recalling how his friend Brian once gave him a 10-second car, echoing the series established theme of second chances.
Of course, this is still Fast & Furious, so introspection only goes so far before things get gloriously ridiculous. Han returns, the “Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift” crew (Sean, Twinkie, and Earl) reassemble, and the film somehow escalates to strapping rocket engines onto a Pontiac Fiero, later used to launch Tej and Roman into outer space to disable an enemy satellite. It’s absurd, self-aware madness, and somehow, it works.
The film closes where it always should: at the Toretto house in Los Angeles, the crew gathered for another barbecue. There’s an empty blue lawn-chair for Brian O’Conner, who is seen pulling into the driveway in his Nissan Skyline GT-R. It’s an oddly emotional moment that blurs the line between fiction and reality. While Brian lives on in the F&F universe, Paul Walker passed away years earlier. It’s a reminder that family isn’t just about who shows up; it’s about who still has a place at the table.
A close knit family isn’t a given; it takes effort to keep together. Perhaps in the future, Dom Toretto can let go of the past and finally invite his brother back to the barbecue.