The Fast Five soundtrack. Fast Five, the fifth movie in Universal’s surprisingly durable Fast and the Furious series, natch, finally accomplishes what even the finest negotiators from the United Nations could not, as it brings together the royal scorpion, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Mr. Babylon ADD himself, Vin “I fill my car up with” Diesel. At last this totemic pair of musclebound chrome-domes have the opportunity not only to act alongside one another, but also to engage in high-minded discussion as to whose ‘tough guy comically juxtaposed with cute kids’ movie really was the crappiest. Which of Vin’s The Pacifier and Rocky’s Tooth Fairy had the biggest whiff of post-gym sweaty testicles about it? Eh?

Or is that the elephant in the room which dares not speak its name? (Yeah, it’s a talking elephant. Like Babar) As the action-pants duo instead content themselves with simply ripping the piss out of Triple H’s The Chaperone. “The Crap-erone more like,” sneers Vin to a chortling Rock. Vin is the Ustinovian wit of the couple, you see.

The Rock and the Vinster take a sunny sojourn to South America for Fast Five, with the former in Rio as a ludicrous-bearded hard nut attempting to slap the brakes on the latter and Poor Walker (maybe while they’re all there they can repeatedly run over that irritating animated blue bird till he’s all feathers and knobbly feet). And the Rio setting also provides the overriding flavour of the soundtrack, with score composer Brian Tyler infusing his contributions with steel drums and samba beats, in order to convey some hint of carnival flavour. I recently knocked the lamentable trend of giving over a few desultory soundtrack slots to brief snippets of a movie’s main score, but Tyler actually makes better use of his limited space than many, with even his final Fast Five Suite packing a big, bold brassy wallop.

For the rest of the Fast Five soundtrack we mostly get Latin-tinged hip-hop, with a fair number of tracks proving to be brain-burrowingly decent. Don Omar’s How We Roll now comes with added Busta Rhymes, his rapping achieving velocities greater than even Rock, Vin and Poor Walker can manage in their vroom-vroom cars. Meanwhile, the guitar-led mambo of Carlito Marron is a late afternoon listening pleasure, while insanely frenetic club thumper Follow Me, Follow Me is as repetitive as Crazy Frog but something you will, perhaps surprisingly, find yourself wanting to listen to again.

It’s not all smiles ‘n’ sunshine, mind. Hybrid’s Han Drifting is precisely the kind of generic action-thriller cut that Tyler’s bits are not, and the team-up between Hybrid and Edu K, Million Dollar Race, is even shonkier, the snarls of guitar laid over electronic mix making for a sickly confection that only slicked-back Euro-yuppies could ever get into.

Having earned himself a gold star already, Don Omar undoes that good work with the autotuned pap of Danzo Kaduro, and the closer from Ludacris, Furiously Dangerous, features a contender for ‘most irritating chorus of any song heard so far this year’. Seriously, if you can make it past the first 16 seconds then you’re tougher than the Rock and the Vinster put together.

Listen To A Track From The Fast Five Soundtrack:

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Fast Five Soundtrack – Track List
1. How We Roll (Fast Five Remix) – Don Omar, Busta Rhymes, Reek da Villian and J-doe
2. Desabafo Deixa Eu Dizer – Marcelo D2/Claudia
3. Assembling the Team – Brian Tyler
4. L. Gelada – 3 Da Madrugada (MV Bill)
5. Carlito Marron – Carlinhos Brown
6. Han Drifting – Hybrid
7. Million Dollar Race featuring “Popozuda Rock ‘n’ Roll” – Edu K and Hybrid
8. Mad Skills – Brian Tyler
9. Batalha – ObandO
10. Danzo Kuduro – Don Omar featuring Lucenzo
11. Follow Me, Follow Me (Quem Que Caguetou? (Fast Five Hybrid Mix) – Tejo, Black Alien and Speed
12. Fast Five Suite – Brian Tyler
13. Furiously Dangerous – Ludacris featuring Slaughterhouse and Claret Jai

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