The better than expected
'Nuff said. The plot of The Fast and the Furious is straight forward. Paul Walker is an undercover cop looking to infiltrate a rice car gang to find out who's behind semi jackings. Vin Diesel, who supplied the voice for the giant in the way underrated and underseen The Iron Giant , is the main suspect.
The Fast and the Furious has its share of unavoidable cliches:
That out of the way, I'll say this much: the movie is way better than I thought it'd be. I was expecting another true piece o' crap not unlike Gone in 60 Seconds . Thankfully it's not. Fast's screenplay has dialog and actions which have you believing these characters have known and interacted with each other for years. Unlike the jaw-droppingly bad drivel spouted by the Oscar winners in 60 Seconds. So kudos also to Fast's director, Cohen.
The movie posseses slick photography. The first big drag race has a style right out of 2001's stargate sequence. The shot where you are a gulp of air sucked into the motor, travel along the geartrain, and are spit out the exhaust pipe was very cool. The time lapse photogaphy segueing from one scene to another works very well.
The pounding rock soundtrack is appropriate. Not thrilled with all the rapcrap "music", but I'm not the demographic that this movie was aimed at.
Course with a movie based on cars, you have to have car stunts and they are spectacular. Not keen on the movie based around rice rockets, but that's the nature of today's hot car market. (Plus I hate to admit it, but these hopped-up FWD Japmobiles could probably pound my Charger at the strip thanks to their overstressed engines.)
Then of course there's the black supercharged Charger which looks like Darth Vader's weekend toy. Yes, it does tickle my ass to no end that when it's time to pick an older car with ultracool styling , a second generation Charger quite often gets the nod. And you've seen the trailers and the commercials, so you know the car does not get off without a scratch. (Would it kill the cretins who create the movie promos to hold at least something for first-time enjoyment as the movie unspools? Goddam jerks.) Plus the sequence where the Charger leaps onto its rear wheels like a Mustang (the horse, not the car) rearing onto its rear legs is certainly a physics-defyer. At least the old Detroit iron won the race before the nonsurprise wipeout.
But hey, it's a movie. And who said movies were based on reality?
Got its unavoidable cliches, but all in all, a pretty good ride. Oh, if you stay in your seat till the credits stop rolling on the screen, you get a movie afterword.