Jason Statham executed one of Fast Five‘s biggest, most eye-catching stunts in a movie directed by Guy Ritchie six years prior. Well before Fast Five’s 2011 premiere, Statham was increasingly evolving into his action star persona, featuring in the classic The Transporter and The Expendables franchises, as well as in one-off action flicks like The Bank Job, The Italian Job, and Death Race. Since then, Statham’s action career has led him into renowned roles, including Adam Clay in the $152 million action thriller The Beekeeper and Deckard Shaw in the latter half of the Fast & Furious franchise.

Given Statham’s impressive background in martial arts and action history in film, it comes as no surprise that the $7.3 billion Fast & Furious franchise employed the actor in a recurring role across five of its movies. Starting in an uncredited Fast Six cameo during its end credits, Statham went on to play the highly skilled driver and fighter Shaw up until 2023’s Fast X. Before successfully snatching up Statham – however – the Fast & Furious franchise executed a momentous stunt in Fast Five that the actor enacted in another film long before.

Jason Statham’s Revolver Did A Similar Safe Heist As Fast Five

Statham’s Jake Green Performs A Heist On A Safe Full Of Cocaine

Statham starred in Guy Ritchie’s 2005 action thriller Revolver as the street gambler Jake Green. In Revolver, Green is fresh out of a seven-year jail sentence, seeking revenge on the crime boss who landed him there, Dorothy Macha. Once Macha becomes privy to Green’s revenge plans, he puts out a hit on his life, instigating a violent and thrilling back-and-forth between Green and Macha that comes to include murder, kidnapping, shoot-outs, and a safe heist very similar to the one depicted in Fast X.

Setting up Macha to be indebted to an even bigger crime boss, Green performs a heist with accomplices Avi (André Benjamin) and Zack (Vincent Pastore) on a safe full of cocaine hidden in Macha’s casino. Cleverly, they obtain the vault by drilling through the casino’s external walls, attaching a cord from the safe to a vehicle, and pulling the safe through the wall by driving off. Regardless of how cool Green’s heist sounds, it served as a prelude to other more exciting, higher-octane exchanges between Green and Macha and had less impact on the film than one would expect.

Fast Five’s Safe Heist Is Way Better Than Revolver’s

Fast Five’s Safe Heist Is Bigger and More Exciting

Six years after Revolver, Fast Five filmed a vault heist stunt and did it better. While most of it had to do with the sheer scale of the stunts Fast films usually attempt, much of it had to do with the safe heist’s placement in the Fast Five movie. Dominic Torretto (Vin Diesel), Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), and the rest of their gang team up with DSS Agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) to steal $100 million from a vault belonging to drug lord Hernan Reyes. As Fast Five’s principal antagonist, Reyes (Joaquim Almeida) is the film’s biggest source of contention.

It isn’t until the tail-end of Fast Five that Torretto and O’Conner carry out their comeuppance by successfully stealing Reyes’ stash. With a military-grade vehicle, Hobbs drives into the building where Reyes’ money is stored; the vault’s hooked onto the back of two cars, and Torreto and O’Conner spend at least ten minutes of the movie zooming through the city to escape Reyes’ pursuit. The Fast Five safe heist is an intense action sequence that’s grander than Revolver’s, but it feels even bigger and better because it serves as the climax of the movie instead of a supporting scene.