A rebuttal of Theo Robertson's critique.

Rating: 8/10 (25 May 2004)

The user comments by 36-year-old Theo Robertson of Isle of Bute, Scotland, are sort of valid, although he is very dismissive and critical of TFATF's plot and "product placement." Like it's a bad thing. Perhaps living on an island in Scotland does not equip one to understand or fairly "criticise" a southern Californian car-cult movie. And he's 36, "...too old to enjoy TFATF by about...oh, twenty years?" I am 61 and I thought it was a fun movie. In New Mexico, we know A LOT about custom cars, low-riders and high-riders, and we understand how (and WHY)one might put tens of thousands of dollars into creating a really boss machine. Sure, TFATF is pure science fiction, the science being the cars and the fiction being the likelihood of scores of custom race car afficionados being able to commandeer a "deserted" street for a midnight race. But yes, the car cult does cross race and ethnic lines, because it's all about the cars.... And so what if the film has a lot of "product placement"? Personally, I didn't even understand half of what the characters were talking about when it came to custom engine parts. The movie does one thing very well: it entertains. Obviously. There's a very successful sequel out now. Compared to other movies in its sub-genre, The Fast and The Furious deserves an 8 or 9.