Fast & Furious review

Fast & Furious is a loud, hyperkinetic, mind scrambling mix of cars, women, drugs, money and loud music thrown together on the screen for 99 minutes.

Were you expecting King Lear?

This is the fourth movie in the franchise and is easily better than numbers 2 and 3. It's quite possibly even better than the first. (I can't say the original, since The Fast & The Furious was originally made in 1955. It's nothing like the 2001 version, only the title made the jump.) It's also the first of the sequels to feature the return of the four major stars; Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster.

The film starts off with Dom (Diesel), Letty (Rodriguez) and their team stealing the four fuel tanker trailers being hauled along an empty Dominican Republic highway. The movie never tells us if our lead-footed anti-heroes are playing Robin Hood or are just robbin', but it doesn't matter. The action is intense, if not mostly improbable, and it all ends in a really big explosion.

Then we're reintroduced to O'Conner (Walker), who was a police officer in the first film, became a fugitive on the run in the second film, and somehow is now on a special FBI task force looking to catch Braga, the head of a Mexican drug cartel that is using street racers to quickly move drugs across the border.

Were you expecting Hamlet?

I won't give away the unexpected first act twist which brings Dom and O'Conner back together, but it doesn't take long before they are both behind the wheels of their pimped-out rides hoping to get close enough to Braga to either capture, or kill him.

This is a lean movie that doesn't allow anyone on screen to say anything unless it pushes the central plot. Punches are thrown, cars are crashed and booties are shaken. Does that sound interesting to you at all? If so, then you will probably enjoy the film. The audience I saw it with broke into spontaneous applause several times.

If not ... the Houston Shakespeare festival is just a couple months away.

Comments

[BMW Rider]

the movies are not bad but these movies also get teens worked up. you end up driving the streets seeing Honda Accords and Civics racing Acura Integras, Mustangs....etc...and do they care for the safety of others? nope....

[Mike O'Neill]

I wish that wasn't a real problem, but it is. I felt a little more aggressive behind the wheel after the film, too, but with my car you can measure zero to 60 with an hourglass.
There is a disclaimer in the credits warning that all the driving was done by professionals in a controlled environment, even though there were a lot of 'innocent' drivers caught up in the one big street race.