‘Overhaul’ Review (Netflix)
Stars: Thiago Martins, Raphael Logam, Sheron Menezzes, Evandro Mesquita, Milhem Cortez, Paulo Vilhena | Written by Leandro Soares | Directed by Tomas Portella
Do you know what we don’t get enough in movies? Vehicle-based heists. I jest of course but Overhaul (originally titled Cargo Maxima in its native Brazil) feels very much like yet another entry in the Fast & Furious franchise… Well, before it dropped the “and the” from the title! Yes, this is a throwback to the more basic, less “out of this world” antics of the early Vin Diesel films, when it was all about the car racing/cop chase action rather than unbelievable superhero-esque antics of Dom and co. in the more recent franchise entries.
The plot is pretty simple. Truck racer – yes you read that right – TRUCK racer, Roger Matos (Thiago Martins) is suffering in both his personal and professional life and when his father dies in an accident right in front of him, after the pair argue, it pushes Roger over the edge and into a life of crime to pay off his father’s debts and thus keep his truck racing team in the black and on the track.
Right off the bat, it’s clear Overhaul has taken FAR too much influence from the Fast & Furious franchise. It plays out in the same ADHD style as those movies for the first half, cutting from scene to scene to scene, in an effort to try and cram a ton of backstory in a short amount of time as possible. We get truck racing, showing us the competition between Roger and fellow truck racer Debora (Sheron Menezzes) – though IMDb and the press materials reference her as Rainha, which is CLEARLY the sponsor of her truck and NOT her name; a street race with Roger’s best friend Danilo (Raphael Logam) that leads to the argument with Roger’s father and in turn his father’s death. We get a quick montage as Roger can’t find a sponsor for the next racing season and then, as expected, the bad guys show up looking for the money Roger’s dad owed them!
Once that’s all over with and Roger realises his father was in debt to gangster Odilon (Evandro Mesquita) it’s a swift 5-minute conversation between and voila, Roger is driving for Odilon to pay off the debt his father racked up. It’s a lot of sound and fury to get to this all-too-obvious point though! What’s also obvious is how Odilon and his associate Smokey (Milhelm Cortez) play down the legality of the entire thing…
And that’s the problem with Overhaul, it can’t do anything but play out the stereotypes and cliches that the Fast & Furious films laid down – though there’s a curveball thrown into the mix about 40 minutes in that I, honestly, didn’t see coming which changes things up a little AND there’s the edition of a new female character, one that throws a spanner in the works at first but even she, and Roger’s “love interest” Debora, both end up following the same “as hard and fast as the boys” stereotype that Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Elsa Pataky, Gal Gadget, Charlize Theron and even Devon Aoki pioneered throughout the Toretto-family series!
And if you like that franchise, you’ll probably enjoy Overhaul too. Though you may have to temper your expectations for the kind of crazy action you see in the Fast & Furious franchise today, to the level of the first three entries in the series, in order to get the most out of this Brazilian wannabe.
** 2/5
Overhaul is streaming on Netflix now.
