The Best Fast And Furious Villains Are The Ones Who Take Things Personally

The "Fast and Furious" saga is one of Hollywood's purest movie franchises, one that understands the primordial appeal of exciting spectacle, dumb plots, and larger-than-life characters, as well as earnest melodrama and a focus on family that other franchises simply can't replicate.

This is also a movie franchise unafraid to reinvent itself, to destroy its continuity for the sake of a better story and spectacle. The only rule in these movies is the rule of cool. Because of how often the franchise is retentive while also retconning itself, each movie's villain is as different as they can be from each other. 

And yet, there are two clear camps when it comes to "Fast and Furious" baddies. There are the ones with a personal vendetta against Dominic Toretto or the "fambly," and then there's everyone else. The thing is, time and time again, the franchise has made it clear that the best villains are the ones who take things personally.

The first villain in the franchise wasn't some supervillain mastermind or some notorious killer, it was Johnny Tran (Rick Yune), some dude who ran a rival race crew as a highway truck robber, creating some serious competition for Dom Toretto. What makes Tran memorable, however, is that he has a reason to hate Dom. We get a sense of their long history of competition in the film. Plus, Tran has a reason to hate Brian, having been ratted out to the cops, leading SWAT to his home and his family. Even on a small scale, he is a compelling villain who we hate because we feel the hate he feels for the heroes.

On the other hand, the next villain in the franchise is Carter Verone (Cole Hauser, seen above in "2 Fast 2 Furious)), some generic drug lord Brian helps bring down in Miami. When it comes down to it, Verone is no different from Arturo Braga (John Ortiz in "Fast & Furious")) or even Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida in "Fast Five")), two other big criminals who don't really give a crap about the family until they start messing up with their profits. Even then, they just treat them as a nuisance rather than sworn enemies.

The worst villains — the ones who simply disappear in the over-the-top stunts, the Coronas and barbecues, and the many twists and turns of the plots of these movies — are the ones who care more about their own personal benefits rather than having a deep-rooted thirst for vengeance against the main characters. Even Cipher, who kills Elena Neves (the mother of Dom's child) and briefly turns Dom to the dark side, doesn't really care about him or the team. She only wants Dom because he is skilled, and she only threatens to kill the fambly to keep him under control. There are no personal stakes for Cipher. On the contrary, she doesn't care, she is cold and detached. 

This is why Jason Momoa's Dante is possibly the greatest villain the franchise has had, or at the very least the best since Deckard Shaw (though Jason Statham's character got ruined when he became part of the family). Not only is Dante a delight to watch, acting like a live-action version of a gender-fluid Bugs Bunny, but he is also someone who absolutely takes things personally — way too personally. Dante not only targets the family specifically and directly, but he has no other plan than to watch them suffer before he decides to kill Dom. 

Dante is not after a trophy for killing Dom, and he's no mercenary either. He doesn't even want to take over the world for money or power. Instead, he just wants to kill the family as revenge for the death of his own father in "Fast Five" and watch the world burn.

In that regard, Dante is closer to Deckard, Johnny Tran, Jakob Toretto, or even DK in "Tokyo Drift." None of these characters started out targeting the family, but the moment their paths crossed with them, they became singularly determined to annihilate them. And that is what makes them the franchise's best villains.