It's fact Fast Five's vault heist stunt remains one of the most memorable sequences in Fast & Furious franchise history, and it took many tricks to pull off. Released in 2011, the fifth film in the franchise reunited Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in their respective roles as Dominic Toretto and Brian O'Conner. Based on the raised stakes, Fast Five became the most important film in the series. The climactic stunt was not only a thrill to watch, but it also set the tone for the level of action sequences yet to come in the franchise.
After Dom was freed from a prison bus transport by Brian and Dom's younger sister, Mia Toretto, the trio went on the run to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. While there, they get swept up into the criminal empire of corrupt businessman Hernan Reyes. With the help of a team comprised of Han Lue, Roman Pearce, Tej Parker, and Gisele Yashar, the group set their sites on a vault housing $100 million of Reyes' finances. While the team attempted to orchestrate a plan to obtain the cash, DSS agent Luke Hobbs and his team target Dom's crew until they, too, became enemies of Reyes.
Seeing as infiltrating the police station to rob the vault holding the $100 million is out of the question, the group decided to steal the entire vault. Hobbs assisted in crashing a Hummer through a cement wall in the garage so that Dom and Brian could tether wires to the vault. The duo then used Dodge Chargers to pull the vault from the building, setting off an epic car chase with police and Reyes' henchmen. The heist through Rio de Janeiro took four weeks of preparation for director Justin Lin and his team. Though filming certain angles was difficult, moving the actual vault turned out to be one of the biggest challenges. Thankfully, Fast Five's stunt crew came up with a few special prop vaults.
Fast Five's Big Heist Featured A Self-Driving Vault
To pull off the heist and subsequent chase, stunt coordinator Jack Gill built multiple vaults, including one that had a pickup truck inside. For a car to fit in the vault, Gill cut the middle of the truckbed and welded the pieces back together. With four tires, one seat, and a steering wheel, the vehicle was able to transform into a moving vault. In certain scenes, stunt driver Henry Kingi was controlling the motions of the vault while Dominic and Brian seemed to be pulling it through the streets. Since the steel of the vault was an inch from the ground, Kingi had the ability to steer it in all directions.
Other enormous vault props that weighed around nine tons were used for stunts that involved mass destruction. When various cars became the victim of the speeding vault, the stunt team built a vault-like facade on a semi-truck to easily demolish anything that came in its path. In total, over 200 cars were said to have been destroyed by the vault. Special cameras mounted on the filming crews' cars were able to capture all angles of the sequence, and special effects served as the glue that held the entire stunt together. All in all, Fast Five achieved one of the most entertaining sequences in Fast & Furious' wild history while subsequently taking the series to new levels.
