In F9, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and friends team up once again to foil a world-shattering conspiracy headed by the most talented assassin and high-performance driver they’ve ever encountered: Dominic’s long-lost brother, Jakob (John Cena).
With a somewhat later release date than expected (the picture was initially scheduled to be released in 2020, but was postponed owing to Covid-19), UK viewers are in for a great treat as the nonstop action hurtles throughout the globe—from London to Tokyo and from Central America to the United States.
Over the years, Edinburgh has been used to film a multitude of home-grown favourites such as Trainspotting and Sunshine On Leith. But only recently has it attracted more attention from blockbuster film creators.
I have never been particularly interested in the Fast & Furious franchise in spite of its enormous popularity. But after stumbling across the filming rig in 2019, I knew I had to go watch this one when it comes out. I’m no film critic but I will say it was big, dumb stupid fun. The Edinburgh sequence starts with an exterior shot of The Castle and then cuts to a fake interior with some CCTV monitors and a couple of security guards. One the of security guards produces the most cringe moment when he exclaims “what the hell was that, jimmy?” in a Scottish accent that would make Scotty from the OG Star Trek proud.
St Gyles Cathedral & Lawnmarket
The starting point for the Edinburgh sequence, where several main characters find a truck with some enormous electromagnets in the back. The actors can be seen walking inside the cathedral and around the outside. Later in the movie, John Cena’s character is seen sliding out of the roof on a rope then proceeding to slide all over the city on the same rope.
Cockburn Street
The high speed car chase down this 250m street lasted for around 2 minutes. For those unfamiliar with the area, you could walk down this street in that time.
George Street/West End
After sliding on a rope all over the old town, John Cena eventually ends up sliding between buildings on George Street and Melville Street.
Calton Road & Waterloo Place
The underside of the bridge where a car crash scene takes place was first made Hollywood-famous by 1996’s Trainspotting. F9 makes great use of the dual level nature of Edinburgh’s streets when two characters later jump off this bridge to land on a car driving on Calton Road below.
Behind the scenes photos on Calton Road
These photos were taken just after the crew wrapped up the scene in which the blue Jaguar XE crashes under the bridge(pictured)
Filming truck with an incredible 360 degree camera rig mounted on top 
Looking down to Calton Road from Waterloo Place 
Left: blue Jaguar XE | Right: red Toyota
West Port
The Edinburgh sequence ends with a sports car getting magnetically attracted from a parallel road, through a shop into the back of a delivery truck on another road. The massive carnage which resulted was one of the least destructive and crazy scenes in this movie, if you can believe that.
