FAST & FURIOUS 9 Teases Dom’s Quarter Mile Crisis

In advance of a full-length trailer coming on Friday, Jan. 31, a fan-made Twitter account unveiled a teaser hinting at the epic drama set to unfold in the next installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise. Tuesday morning, @FastFamily released a 60-second clip for F9 focused on Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), his son Brian, and partner Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) indicating that things for Toretto’s makeshift family will get worse before they get better.

At the end of The Fate of the Furious, Dom broke ties with Cipher (Charlize Theron), the computer hacker who blackmailed him into helping her, and reunited with the teammates she forced him to betray. Although they were able to stop Cipher’s plan to spark a nuclear conflict between world superpowers, Dom learned he has a new responsibility – a son he named Brian – and settles into a lifestyle of quiet domesticity with longtime lover Letty. This new clip sets the stage for an epic finale built upon a possible new challenge to Dom’s most closely-held priority, “family,” as Cipher remains at large and determined to exact revenge upon the Fast and Furious team.

In the clip, Dom works on a vehicle in his delightfully rustic barn as young Brian watches his every move. He teaches the boy about the mechanics of automobiles before teaching him about the lynchpin of existence, the loved ones around him. Letty joins the two of them as Brian prepares for bed, and gives the boy a chain with a cross, a gift once given to her by Dom. “It’s for protection from what’s coming,” she says ominously.

F9 marks the beginning of a two-part finale for the series, both directed by Justin Lin, who shepherded the franchise into worldwide box office glory after tackling Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift. His work on Fast & Furious, Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6 not only broke box office records but defined the tome and themes of the franchise unlike ever before. “Family” obviously continues to be a priority, but it remains to be seen if Lin can find a way to bring back the character he brought to the series, the late Han Lue (Sung Kang), or at the very least explain how and why Dom forgave Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) for killing one of his closest colleagues.

With each film, the stakes continue to raise, adding characters and ever-more-dangerous conflicts; the onetime franchise about drug deals, import cars and underground racing networks has grown into a more conventional action-adventure framework, boasting sequences where cars crash across the favelas of Brazil, parachute out of aircraft carriers, and race across frozen lakes to intercept nuclear warheads. Meanwhile, Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs became such a popular character after debuting in Fast Five that he and Jason Statham co-starred in the series’ first spinoff, Hobbs & Shaw. And in addition to the last two official Fast and the Furious films, Universal announced plans to develop a racing film focused on its female characters.

Perhaps Friday’s trailer will offer more details about who’s involved in the final Fast and the Furious films, or reveal what sort of danger might be coming for Dom and the team. Regardless, it’s safe to assume that the film will build beautifully on the template created by its predecessors, leading to a pulse-pounding, gas-to-the-floor climax.

Photos courtesy Universal Pictures.