Fast and Furious

Sometimes a series has just run its course. There are no more stories to tell and the characters just can't go any further. Yet for some reason the studios push them forward hoping to draw a little bit more box office out of them. This is the case with the Fast and the Furious franchise, which I guess has run out of ideas to the point that they are just deleting individual words from the title. The latest iteration of the street racing series just removes the prepositions to become Fast and Furious. By the sixth film we should be down to just Fast, or maybe just Furious.

The movie is indeed fast, but there was not nearly the level of furious that I think was intended. All of the main players from the original film return; Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Paul Walker, and even Vin Diesel who at one point looked like he would never return to the character of Dominic Toretto.

The film breaks down like this. Toretto and his still girlfriend Letty (Michele Rodriguez) are hiding out in various areas of South America pulling the same kinds of jobs that they were back in the first film; including hijacking fuel trucks. Which is where the film opens, with a pretty amazing intro scene that takes a page from the James Bond films in that it hits you right away with action and gets the adrenaline pumping even before the opening credits actually roll. Without spoiling anything, circumstances bring Toretto back to LA where Walker's character Brian has been reinstated as an FBI agent and the two get tangled up in another web of fast cars, hot women and illegal activity. You can probably fill the rest in from there.

The characters and this film are a few years too late. While its not the worst of the series, Fast and Furious is certainly not the best (that honor still belongs to the first one). Instead of embarking on the two awful sequels (2Fast2Furious and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) the makers of the film would have done better to make this film right after the original. After so much time has past, its hard to get back into the story and care at all. And the acting, which is almost laughably awful at times doesn't help. In fact, the best parts of the film seem to be when the characters, in the words of Rihanna "shut up and drive."

But maybe that isn't so bad, and certainly that’s not a shocking revelation. Because from the start, this franchise has excelled at its racing/driving scenes. It continues to push the limit and set the bar for street racing scenes and car stunts. Rivaled, in recent memory, perhaps only by the car scenes in the Bourne trilogy of films. The moves are sleeker and faster than ever, and provide quite a bit of entertainment even to the point of being a little bit unpredictable which is always appreciated given that, as far as the plot is concerned, you know where this movie is headed long before it gets there.

The acting is nothing to write home about, however Diesel does stand out a bit from the others. He shows an actual progression from the first film, while the rest of the cast seems to have just shown up as the same old characters. Toretto is a little bit deeper, and while his actual motivations in the film aren't all that complex, Diesel has created a character that you can at the very least root for and care about on some level. Connecting you to a film that otherwise hopes to wow you with car chases and nothing else.

In the end, you probably can pull some mindless enjoyment out of the film. It is fun, there are a few funny lines and situations and one or two little twists in the plot that while they aren't earth shattering, certainly help it keep from becoming too stale or predictable. And yes, the ending does leave room for another sequel which I'm sure is well on its way. The only question that remains now is, do you prefer it Fast? Or would you rather have it Furious?

Score: 5.4

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