How it all began

Rating: 4/10 (4 June 2017)

"The Fast and the Furious" is an American movie from 2001, so this one had its 15th anniversary already last year. It runs for 105 minutes roughly and the script was developed overall by no less than 4 writers, the most known one being David Ayer I guess. The director is Rob Cohen and this is probably still the most known effort from his career. He never returned to direct any other of this franchise's films. And now I said it already that this action movie we have here is the very first from the extremely long-running F&F franchise that is still very strong today. Eight films have been there so far and two more are already greenlit. The franchise seems unstoppable as even the death of number 1 lead actor (at least in this film we have here) Paul Walker did not put an end to the series. But we don't wanna talk about his tragic fate today, but instead focus on this film we have here. Tragic, or at least sad, is also a fitting description for the film I would say as I was not convinced by anything in here really apart from the effects perhaps. People often say that this is a movie for men, but if you take a look at the demographics here you will realize that women have actually given it an 0.3 higher rating, which of course also has to do with the quantity of voters. But still, saying this is a film for men is is pretty inaccurate in my opinion as it would imply that men have worse taste in film than women because honestly there is nothing impressive at all about the story here, the character writing and also the performances.
I believe that in terms of depth, the story could have fit in under one hour as well. The rest is mostly "cool" quotes that add nothing really, gimmicky behavior from the characters and then of course the pompous action scenes that turn this film into a definite case of style over substance. The core story of a cop infiltrating a gang of very fast drivers in order to get evidence on illegal activities is nothing that hasn't been done before and frequently better. If you read the actors' names, you also know that honestly you can't expect any powerhouse performances in here. It is all subordinated to the visual side and with the casting they absolutely made sure none of the cast members is going to take any attention away from that. The epilogue is probably even more embarrassing than the rest and honestly, having seen none of the many many sequels, I truly hope they managed to step things up and give audiences more than pointlessly spectacular car sequences and when they had enough of that, they switched to motorbikes and even helicopters. With films like this, there is of course always the opportunity for pointless fun, but this requires the film to not take itself as seriously as this one here did on several occasions. I give it a thumbs-down and like I said: If the following films don't show improvement, then I probably cannot be as generous as I was here with my 4/10 rating. Watch something else instead.