Wow!

Rating: Null/10 (25 February 2004)

I first became aware of this movie when the first annual Taurus awards for stunts aired. Normally, I'm not a big fan of action movies, but this one was really something. Not only fantastic stunt driving around 18-wheelers, but one female character actually drove UNDER a tractor-trailer! Add to the stunts the great editing and amazing camera work. Not to mention visual effects. And just before the street racing, I thought they showed the equipment in the cars quite effectively. One more thing: in one of the race scenes, which wasn't an event with spectators, these two guys tried to beat a train! And one didn't seem to think life was worth living so anything could have happened. It was something to watch.
Still, the music was too loud, there was more violence than I care for, and there wasn't much to the plot. At least I saw a version with the language cleaned up. But I felt there was good acting. For this kind of movie, anyway. Vin Diesel may not have been Oscar caliber here, but he showed potential, especially when talking about what happened to his father and how it changed his life. Jordana Brewster and Paul Walker were pretty good too. Ja Rule wasn't bad.
This was one to keep me on the edge of my seat. I don't watch a lot of movies like these, but this was definitely one to see.