Rent The Fast and the Furious on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Ken Li (magazine article "Racer X"), Gary Scott Thompson (screen story), Gary Scott Thompson and Erik Bergquist and David Ayer (screenplay)
Directed by: Rob Cohen
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Rick Yune
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer
Plot
Brian makes his way into Dom's illegal street racing crew, but Brian's loyalties aren't as they seem.
Verdict
This
movie is a guilty pleasure. It's not a good movie, but it's a lot of
fun. This movie introduced me to import cars, brought the import scene
to the forefront of pop culture, and it launched the careers of Vin
Diesel and Paul Walker. It's got good action and competent directing,
but the dialog is clunky in the best possible way. Nearly every line is
quotable because of the stilted awkwardness. "I live my life a quarter
mile at a time." "You never had your car." "I never narc'd on nobody."
"I owe you a ten second car."
This launched the Fast and Furious franchise
which quickly transitioned from a small budget car movie to an ever
expanding over the top series of heist movies. This is still my favorite
from the franchise.
Watch it.
Review
This movie loves modified, flashy cars. What
the sequels never captured is the prevalent love of cars. In the
sequels every member of
the team is a trained special-ops fighter and Vin Diesel utters "family"
every other line. There is a definite correlation between the
increasing budget and my decreasing interest. It's no longer a car
movie, and that transition started in the first sequel.
I've
seen this movie many times. I went to the theater more than once, and
witnessed mini-vans attempting burnouts afterwards. This movie has to be
responsible for a lot of idiot's accidents.
Upon this rewatch, I was
surprised at the directing. Cohen does a nice job while battling the
dialog. I could buy the dialog if this was a spoof, but it's
earnest. I don't know how dialog this funny was created without it being
intentional. "What's up with this fool? Is he sandwich crazy?" The
dialog is mindless at best, but I can't help liking it. It's like the
writers' goal was to create the coolest sentence for every line
regardless of whether it made sense.
Brian (Paul
Walker) becomes friends with Dom (Vin Diesel) and his street racing crew
after losing a race and his car to Dom. Dom is the dominant and most
popular street racer. This is his world, and Brian is trying to get in.
Dom's car of choice is a third generation turbo Mazda RX-7. Brian starts
in an
Eclipse and transitions to a turbo Toyota Supra. Many of these cars
have NOS (nitrous oxide), which is inaccurately portrayed as doubling
the power of your car at the touch of a button.
 |
| A fun guilty pleasure, with plenty of import cars. |
What this
movie gets right is the pacing. We see explosions and fast cars, which
are as over the top as the dialog with horrid vinyl graphics and bright
colors. The action is inter-cut with slower moments where we build the
characters. Dom has a violent past and Brian has a few secrets. As bad
as the dialog is, the pacing is very good, balancing action, racing,
romance, and the characters.
With all of the ten second cars,
these races take minutes time. I get it's for effect, but there is no
street long enough to contain these races.
The story is good, it's
just gotten the '90s filter. It really explores that line of being loyal
to opposite sides of the law. It takes more than a few queues from Donnie Brasco (1997),
with Brian's allegiances changing.
The
soundtrack is definitely a product of the '90s, and I love it. It
features Ja Rule, who also cameos in the movie, Limp Bizkit, and
Ludacris among others.
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