High-Octane Entertainment

Rating: 8/10 (24 January 2002)

The summer of 2001 was filled with a countless number of action flicks that for the most part were successful. "The Fast and the Furious" was one of them. Some of the previews for this movie which have Limp Bizkit's "My Way" or Ja Rule's "Furious" playing in the background can lead you to expect a no-holds-barred film with relentless action scenes that are made to get the adrenaline pumping. "The Fast and the Furious" for the most part has all of that. The acting here is pretty good despite the fact this is a summer action film. Vin Diesel is already on his way to super-stardom as is Paul Walker. The racing scenes are excellently done but look a lot more like something out of a really hot Playstation 2 game, as someone pointed out earlier at this site.
Now for the bad parts. The storyline sucks mainly because we saw it in another movie that was released nearly ten years before "The Fast and the Furious". That movie was "Point Break" which just so happened to star Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. The plotlines for both films are almost identical. I'm going to do this in comparison style with "The Fast and the Furious" first and "Point Break" second. "The Fast and the Furious/Point Break" both have rookie cops(Paul Walker/Keanu Reeves) going undercover(LA street racing scene/LA surfing scene) to find the culprits behind several daring heists(truck heists/bank robberies). The cops both fall in love with someone close to the suspected ring leader(Jordana Brewster/Lori Petty). The endings for both films pretty much leave the door open for sequels but is more likely with "The Fast and the Furious" than it is "Point Break". None of these complaints however, really had an effect on my viewing pleasure. Lastly, what the hell happened to Ja Rule? His performance seems to be more a lot more of a cameo than a small role. He's only in one scene in the whole movie(the first racing scene) and I expected him to at least be in more scenes.
Well "The Fast and the Furious" gets an 8/10 despite the absence of Ja Rule.