The Fast and Furious franchise has one of the most confusing timelines ever, with as many new characters introduced per movie as retcons but one short film helps tie things together. It’s often difficult to understand how the beginning of a film connects to the end of the previous one, because there’s commonly a major time jump and minimal exposition regarding what happened during that time. However, the biggest gap between two movies, and not just temporally, exists between part 4, Fast & Furious (2009), and 2001’s The Fast and the Furious, the first movie in the franchise.

2 Fast 2 Furious, which introduced us to Roman Pearce, featured Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner as the only recurring character from the first film. Meanwhile, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which helped the franchise bounce back after a disappointing second film, is set in Japan and only features characters we haven’t seen before. So, in the same year as Fast & Furious‘ release, Vin Diesel co-wrote and directed a short film that holds the timeline together by covering events that occurred between the first and the fourth film.

What Happens In Los Bandoleros

Dom Is In The Dominican Republic

Los Bandoleros opens with a haunting monologue about the criminal justice system in South America, delivered by a man in prison, who suggests that criminals are created by a corrupt system for others to profit from their misdeeds and misfortune. This somber tone is followed by a jarringly lighthearted journey through disjointed conversations that somehow still cover some of the gaps between the aforementioned movies. We meet a man named Santos, who helps Dom break another new character, named Leo, from prison.

Before the jailbreak, we see Han arrive in the Dominican Republic and reunite with his friend Dom. Han was previously introduced in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, but this is the first time he meets Dom on screen. After a conversation with a local leader who seems to suggest Dom is free to run a criminal operation if he wants to, Letty joins him. It is revealed that Letty tracked down Dom after he seemingly disappeared. The rest of the short film is just a montage of them over the course of a day.

The Questions Los Bandoleros Answers

It Provides Backstories For Important Characters

Many consider Fast Five the best Fast and Furious movie because it successfully switches up the formula and incorporates fan-favorite characters into the main storyline. However, without Los Bandoleros, we would never know how Dom came to know Leo and Santos, both of whom recur in the franchise, but most prominently in Fast Five. Similarly, in a conversation with a woman, Han divulges necessary information about how he met Dom, thus explaining why they know each other in Los Bandoleros and Fast Five.

Ultimately, Fast & Furious starts off in a confusing way, with a major narrative gap from The Fast and the Furious, and Los Bandoleros answers at least two of the most burning questions. The short film explains how Letty and Dom are together at the beginning of Fast & Furious, and what they’re doing in the Dominican Republic. Moreover, Leo and Santos are also part of Dom’s crew in Fast & Furious, and Los Bandoleros explains why they’re working with him to hijack fuel tankers.