Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto is the boulder-shaped man upon which the Fast and Furious franchise has been built. After starting as a relatively straightforward series about driving cool cars at reckless speeds, the films’ absurdity has increased along with their budget, leading to sequences like the team skydiving inside their vehicles or the Rock destroying a drone with an ambulance or Dom jumping a gold-plated, ruby-encrusted Lykan Hypersport between three Abu Dhabi skyscrapers.
But other than an excuse to string together stunts, the franchise is about a lovey-dovey, street-racing supercrew who only go after people worse than they are. In these films, Dom talks about his team as family a lot—partially because a fair amount of his team is family, but also because it seems the unabashedly sentimental bonds between the drivers make them successful, both in their capers and in their films, which have grossed nearly $4 billion worldwide.
But before we get into Dom’s distinctly hammy quotes, a little context. In 2001’s The Fast and The Furious, back when Dom was about 60 percent less thick, we learn how his father died:
“He was coming up in the pro-stock circuit. Last race of the season, he was coming into the final turn when a driver named Kenny Linder tapped his bumper and put him into the wall at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. I watched my father burn to death. I can still remember him screaming. The people who were there said my father died long before the tanks blew. They said it was me that was screaming.”
A week later, Dom dealt with this by repeatedly bashing Linder’s face with a wrench, leaving him a bulgy, bloody mess, robbing him of his ability to drive. Not the healthiest way to cope with a loss. The retaliation gets Dom banned from the professional racing circuit.
So he starts street-racing and hijacking trucks, which catches the attention of the LAPD. They send in undercover cop Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker), who at first seeks to arrest Dom, but then decides he really likes Dom’s sister, Mia, as well as driving cars illegally fast, sparking the beginning of that trio’s bond and Dom’s development into a family man.
Now that you know where he’s coming from, here’s Dom’s five best family quotes.
When You're the Older Brother Who Cheats
When You're Reminding the Fam What Really Matters
When You Are Reunited With Your Amnesiac Ex
Movie: Fast and Furious 6
Year: 2013
The team has scattered all over the world, enjoying their millions from the last heist. Dobbs isn’t thrilled with getting bamboozled, so in exchange for a pardon, he demands they use their absurdly specialized skills to bring down this film’s bad guy Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), who is essentially Dom, but with a far colder approach to his team of mercenaries, which includes the amnesiac Letty.
After Shaw orchestrates a Batman-ass escape scene, Dom and Letty come face to face. Dom gets out of his car slowly, looks Letty in the eyes, says her name in his buttery, yet husky tone and Letty...plugs Dom in the shoulder, gets in her car and drives away. But then Dom drops this nugget of unconditional love and absolutely follows through on that promise by leaping between two bridges to save Letty.
When You're Reminding the Fam It's Time to Grow Up
When You Realize Death Doesn't Destroy Family
