"If you want time buy the magazine." Entertaining enough but rather shallow.

Rating: 6/10 (25 December 2007)

The Fast and the Furious is set in Los Angeles & starts as undercover cop Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) enters an illegal street race between racers with high performance sports cars, he bets his $80,000 car that he'll win but instead loses. Suddenly the cops show up & he manages to save Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) from being arrested, Brian gains Dominic's trust in an attempt to use his knowledge & contacts to identify & take down a gang of street racers who are hijacking huge container trucks & stealing millions of dollars of electrical goods...
This American German co-production was directed by Rob Cohen who has a small cameo as the pizza delivery guy & is an entertaining action flick without ever reaching the heights of greatness. The script by Gary Scott Thompson, Erik Bergquist & David Ayer moves along at a reasonable pace & has decent amounts of action but it never quite satisfied me totally in any area. The plot is predictable & pretty standard fare, the twists have little dramatic impact like the revelation that Brian is a cop or that Dominic is behind the hijackings. A lot more could have been done with them. I usually don't take the moral high ground but in the case of The Fast and the Furious I feel I have to considering the age group this will appeal too, I mean it turns the criminal element into hero's which didn't sit well with me especially at the end when the cop is more concerned about the scumbag hijackers than the poor innocent truck driver! This isn't as action packed as you might like either, sure there's a good opening street race through LA & some good stunts during the final hijack but otherwise it's all show & no substance, just like the cars featured in fact. There are plenty of scenes with high powered cars reeving their engines, plenty of scenes of nicely painted sports cars driving around & plenty of scenes of them breaking the speed limit but it doesn't really amount to much apart from the opening race & the final twenty minutes. The character's are OK if a bit clichéd (I mean Brian actually starts to respect Dominic after being around him for a while...), it keeps one interest & it certainly passes the time harmlessly enough without ever being outstanding.
Director Cohen does OK & turns in a suitably glossy looking film that will probably appeal to the boy racers out there as it glamorises the notion of street racing, winning at any costs & show's these souped up sports cars in as good a light as just about any film out there. The cars themselves look nice enough for sure & they are a pleasant distraction whenever on screen I suppose, at least they divert attention away from the acting. The film has some style about it for sure, the opening street race for instance when they reach top speeds the lights outside the windows blur into one long bright line & there are other tricks used as well to make a cool sequence. The violence is minimal so there's no need to worry about that.
With a supposed budget of about $38,000,000 I wouldn't call The Fast and the Furious exactly low budget but it's not up there with the 100 million plus Hollywood blockbusters, making $40,000,000 on it's opening weekend in theatres it did really well & I think it was a bit of a surprise to everyone involved with it. It's well made with some decent CGI computer effects as well as some good old fashion stunt work. I must admit I didn't like the loud electronic dance type music though. The acting is not great, Vin Diesel was paid a cool $2,000,000 apparently & he's pretty poor, just check out his speech to Brian about his father! Jordana Brewster & Michelle Rodriguez provide the good looks & do a fine job.
The Fast and the Furious is a good solid action thriller, it's not that great in storytelling terms but I think it provides enough cool action, macho moments & fast cars to keep most quiet for 100 odd minutes. Followed by two sequels, 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) & The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) while a third sequel is currently in production.