Movie Review: Fast & Furious
When Rob Cohen’s action driven, urban speed flick, The Fast and the Furious hit theaters back in 2001 it was a phenom. It was the first mainstream film to feature the Asian automotive import scene in North America and was based off a magazine article by Ken Li called “Racer X“.
A lot like the story of Point Break, the Fast and the Furious, had a young FBI agent thrust into a unique urban culture - Suped up cars instead of surfing - Immensely and unsuspecting popular domestically and abroad the 2001 film was a hit. It grossed $40,089,015 on its opening weekend, surpassing the film’s $38 million budget. It grossed a total of $144,533,925 on the domestic market, and $62,750,000 overseas, for a total of $207,283,925.
Fast forward 8 years later and we finally get the sequel that should have happened 8 years ago. Reuniting Paul Walker and Vin Diesel was the best idea the series could have had in order to keep going and be successful. 2009’s sequel, the third in the franchise, gets dubbed Fast and Furious in order to reunite itself not only with the main original cast but also the original fans of the film series that may have been lost.
The story is a lot better than expected picking us up right where we left Dominic Torreto (Vin Diesel), still on the run in the Dominican Republic (where we saw him at the end of the first film). Torreto joined by his love, Letty Ortiz, who are both still running the same highway jobs they once ran in L.A. In fact our opening scene is just as similiar as the one we saw in the 2001 film but fuel tankers are the objective rather than semi’s holding electronics. After the dangerous job is complete almost killing Letty in the process, Dom sends her back home to live her life without him. Dom also tells another crew member named Han (main character from the third film) he should move on prompting him to move on to Tokyo where he says, “I heard they are doing some crazy shit there!.”
Still an international fugitive, Dom is forced to come back to LA after receiving a call regarding his former lover, Letty being murdered. Dom begins his own vigilant investigation to discover who was behind her demise. This leads him to rejoining, now FBI agent Brian O’ Conner (Paul Walker), who is undercover in the street racing world once again trying to untangle a drug traffic ring being run through the world of street racing. Both begin to discover more about the drug trafficking and how it fits into Letty’s death.
The film rather than a direct sequel is more an “interquel” taking place in between the second and the third films. Directed by Justin Lin, returning from his duties after directing Tokyo Drift, does well bringing the stars of the series back together more particularly showing the “respect” between Dom and Brian who play very different sides of the law. The story doesn’t add anything new to the series nor does it have the same impact as the 2001 version did but what it does do is give us some resolve to characters we first met 8 years ago. It is obvious the “stars” of the series Walker and Diesel’s careers haven’t hit the top level they wanted which is probably the reason they decided to revisit the series again, knowing that they could cash in. Both actors are much older now but have aged gracefully allowing for some believability in their presence. Perhaps the biggest loser in the film is Michelle Rodriguez who has maybe 15 minutes of screen-time. Lin’s use of the world of street racing isn’t lost and though the flash and the sex of the culture is a little overplayed I think it was a tad disappointing compared to Lin’s representation of the culture in Japan in the “third” film or Cohen’s use of it in the first film.
Overall cinematically the film has as much fun and action you would expect from the series. Diesel still embodies the, monosyllabic tough guy who will stop at nothing to go to prison, while Walker still looks more believable as a racer with his California “surfer boyness” rather than when he puts on a suit and holds up a badge, which makes his character that much more believable from an undercover standpoint. Ultimately I think this film is one that fans wanted to see 6 or 7 years ago but as they say its never too late and if Indy can come back then why can’t we?
Fast and Furious is great for the series and for fans of the culture but be wary as the racing culture is something that is more background than it is foreground in this film. The story focuses more on the characters than the culture of street racing, which is a little different than the first and third film which both had education into the world represented on screen. Like I mentioned this film is about closure and does not to bring anything new to the series like the third film.
Technical Score: 3
Critical Score: 3
Total Score: 6 out of 10
