(Long Island, N.Y.) Fast & Furious is a difficult film to review, I’ll admit. On the one hand, I tried my very best not to enjoy it, feeling myself above the type of “all style and no substance” drivel that this flashy streetcar-racing franchise (now four movies and counting) is known for. But, despite my best efforts, I found myself actually being entertained throughout its entire running time. Bear in mind, said entertainment was on the basest levels imaginable, much in the same way that ancient cavemen would sit transfixed by the wonderment of fire, or even a really cool rock. But entertainment is entertainment, and while most of us like to make some pretense of our sophistication, at times there’s nothing like slumming when it comes to a quick fix of excitement.
While Fast & Furious is the 4th movie in The Fast and the Furious series, chronologically, it’s set between the second and third films (not that this has much bearing on the plot). The real draw for this installment, however, is the reuniting of the core cast from the original flick- Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster all reprise their roles.
Apparently that, and the promise of intense street racing involving exotic foreign and domestic muscle cars, was enough to draw the masses out of their homes and into the theaters, making Fast & Furious’ opening weekend the biggest of 2009 thus far- and by a wide margin. Does it really deserve to hold such a lofty position over such excellent contenders as Watchmen, The Wrestler, or even my beloved Taken? While the answer is an emphatic “no,” Fast & Furious is nonetheless still good for a few cheap thrills. Read on.
Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), a successful street racer and truck hijacker (as seen in the first film), has gone on to become an internationally-wanted criminal living in the Dominican Republic with his girlfriend/partner Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). After an extremely close call during his most recent hijacking attempt, Dom wakes up to the fact that the authorities are more than likely going to be closing in on him soon. Not wanting to bring Letty down with him, he leaves her and disappears to Panama, only resurfacing years later when he receives news of her tragic murder back in the States. Despite his status as a highly wanted man, Dom sneaks back into the country with vengeance on his mind and starts searching for information on Letty’s killer.
Meanwhile, Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker)- formerly an undercover cop who had previously infiltrated Dom’s gang- is now an FBI agent tracking down a notorious drug lord named Arturo Braga. His investigation causes him to once again cross paths with Dom, who has discovered that Letty’s death was caused by a one of Braga’s henchmen. Realizing that their goals are the same, Dom and Paul team-up and start working undercover as street racers, running heroin for Braga across the Mexican border to gain access to his organization. While the duo works on getting close to Braga, Paul takes the opportunity to re-kindle a past romance with Dom’s sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster). However, Dom’s status as a fugitive from the police, combined with Paul’s hard-edged, “break all the rules” style soon lands the two in hot water on both sides of the law. Can they get the redemption and justice they’re both out for, or is this their last race together? Things don’t look good for our heroes…
Fast & Furious continues the trend of this series with the same formula as before: hot cars, hot women, flashy editing (which is amazingly impressive, from a technical standpoint), and no brains whatsoever. All of this is mixed with a very authentic, gritty street vibe that really helps define the “underground” feel Fast & Furious tries to portray. The dialogue and plot are as threadbare as 20 year-old Goodyears, but the action comes at you so fast and furiously (heh) that you don’t really care. Why? Because the street racing scenes are so breathtaking and intense that your mind is instantly thrown into neutral, and soon little things like character development or story progression become secondary to all the pretty lights and things that go “VROOM.” With all the insane stunts, crashes, computer graphics, and lightning-quick camera work, the visuals of Fast & Furious are mind-bendingly cutting-edge- and we all like pretty things, yes?
Beyond that, we have a basic plot mostly about revenge, which is basically just an excuse to get in those cars and drive real, real fast. As such, you’re never really all that involved with the plights of the characters, but that’s never been the selling point of this series, so it’s pointless to dwell on that. As far as the actors go, Vin Diesel is Vin Diesel, which is perfect for this movie- a big, tough, gravely-voiced guy who beats people up. It’s the role he was born for, and while I’ve seen proof (Saving Private Ryan) that his acting skills possess greater range, he seems content to simply play the same character type over and over. The rest of the cast perform their required duties effectively also- Paul Walker comes off well as the FBI agent working against the meddling of his superiors and torn between duty and his friendship with Dom. Jordana Brewster doesn’t do much besides look cute and squeeze out a few tears here and there, but Michelle Rodriguez’s scrappy character was fun- too bad she’s not in the movie as long as I would have liked.
So, Fast & Furious is all flash and little substance, but sometimes that’s enough. After all, one can not sustain themselves on nothing but 4-star films their entire life, can they? It’s like a proper diet should be: for the most part, you try to eat well- avoid sugar, maintain the proper protein/carb/fat ratio, and exercise…but once in a while you need that bowl of ice cream, if only to keep you sane. In that sense, I suppose that Fast & Furious is the Bryers vanilla bean (yummy!) of the current movie crop. So, if you need your junk food movie fix, you certainly could do worse.
