Fast and Furious – Review

You know, they didn’t make The Fast and the Furious for artistic purposes. The original had enough action, car races, and beautiful girls to make any male in the ever so profitable demographic of 18-30 year olds to prove to be successful to spawn a now fourth film, simply titled Fast and Furious. Also in the original, Rob Cohen provided enough cool moments, like seeing the nitro get injected into the car’s engine and slow-mo finishes to make even the non-car geeks enjoy the car pornography. Personally, I can do without the two sequels that followed, 2 Fast 2 Furious and Tokyo Drift, which is absolutely fine here, as this film feels like a direct sequel to the original anyway.

Rob Cohen, the director of the first film, is a lot like a low-rent Michael Bay, in that he can deliver really good action, inventive action even, but struggles with dialogue scenes and drama. But in The Fast and the Furious, the collective of Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster, were enough to draw interest in the proceedings. I felt that what was lacking in the other two sequels, so the gang’s all back now and in my opinion, it’s all good.

Oh, don’t roll your eyes. A film like this exists for two reasons: one, car races and we all know how cinema has had a love affair with fast cars and cooler crashes, and two, it’s a decent matinée film for a Saturday afternoon. That’s why I think the film is fine. It’s hardly class but it knows what it is, without faking and gets the job done. Justin Lin, the director, is no Rob Cohen, but delivers the action and adds a few neat visual flairs that keeps the film moving. Its pace is commendable. Its a quick 100 minutes, never slowing down too much to show some of the rather weak plot points and makes some of the dialogue a-okay to with stand.

The opening scene, the one from the trailer, sets up the action, and gets us involved. As dopey as it was seeing that tanker engulfed in flames rolling down hill at Vin Diesel with Michelle Rodriguez freaking out, it kind of works in that fun, pulp action way. Even the hand held chase with Paul Walker and a criminal have through some buildings and streets keeps everything pumping. Everyone’s fine; Vin kicks ass, Jordana is giving little to do, but looks stunning (eye candy), and Paul is well, Paul, but is good fun seeing the original crew together again. The film set up a reasonable story to bring them all back, it’s quick and fun, a perfect matinée film with car races. Such simple things like this can equal a fun time at the theater on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and in this current climate, that’s all we can hope for.

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