Jen Chaney Ranks the “Fast and Furious” Movies

Just in time for the release of the sixth in the series of car chase extravaganzas that began with “The Fast and the Furious” is Esquire’s smart and funny assessment of installments 1-6 from my friend Jen Chaney.

It’s tempting to lump all of the Fast and the Furious movies into one massive clutch-popping, Paul Walker-grimacing, Vin Diesel-mumbling action-movie blob. All those drag races, stunningly acrobatic collisions and run-ins with drug lords have a tendency to blend together after a while.

But make no mistake, my riding-or-dying friends: There are differences between the six movies in this lucrative franchise. As Pauline Kael undoubtedly would have said if she’d lived to see Dominic Toretto speeding through Rio with a bank vault attached to his Dodge Charger’s bumper: Fast and Furious movies may be uniformly stupid, but some are still better-stupid than others.