The Fast and the Hyddeous

Rating: Null/10 (1 July 2001)

For movie go-ers these days there isn't much of a variety to choose from. You have the stupid Julia Roberts love stories, the stupid antics of Jackie Chan who's trying to be a funny Chuck Norris, and then the stupid action flicks with no plot. Every once and awhile you will find a movie that makes you think a little bit about society or whatever its subject happens to be. On the surface Fast and the Furious appears to be a stupid action flick with a retarded plot with awesome actions scenes as its only saving grace. Well, this is mostly true. The plot is bland and doesn't make any sense, a bunch of low down dead beats who appear to have no real jobs who can afford a bunch of crappy foreign cars. I'll take my Chevy K-5 any day thank you very much. But on to business. This movie actually has a deeper meaning than is inherently visible. This movie is actually a reversal of several biblical stories woven into a nice finish at the end. The director of this movie, Rob Colen, and Gary Scott Thomsen, adaptor of the screen story, bothattended King's College at Cambridge and this influence is once again present in this work. While studying at Cambridge both men were entranced by the works of C.S. Lewis and other great classics such as Homer's Odyssey and the bible. This story is not about car racing, love or any other stupid themes like that. What Thomsen and Colen have done here is reverse the outcome of several biblical and mythological stories. One that weighs heavily here is the Tower of Babel. "The shadow of that Hyddeous Strength, Sax Myle and more it is of length." This popular quote from the Welsh poet Sir David Lyndsay from his work entitled Ane Dialog, describes the tower of babel as observed in reference to the Fischer King mythology. The Tower of Babel crumbled from a lack of communication according to the myth. That could just as well happen in this representation of the system, but the undercover cop learns to communicate on a spiritual level with the racers, thus learing the importance for maintaining the honor of the racing world, and protecting the true protaganists at the end of the movie. Colen and Thomsen also appear to have taken elements from Greek mythology in the making of this movie as well. Consider these lines from Homer's Odyssey. "Stand beside me, Athena, fire me with daring, fierce as the day we ripped Troy's glittering crown of towers down....Surely I will stand beside you, not forget you, not when the day arrives for us to do our work..." Doesn't this sound familiar to you from the movie? The conversations held before the night street race, before the big finale. Yes, Colen and Thomsen have not only made references in this film to biblical and mythological works but succeeded in blending them together seamlessly. The only thing they forgot was to include Billy Drago in their brilliant cast of actors. This movie has a deep meaning for today's society, as we crumble due to communication barriers all over the world. But people still can stand side by side with others and accomplish great things. I know, I was in the field as a soldier for many years and can tell you that brotherhood can still run strong in this fading world. If every movie was as inspiring as this one, no one would ever want to leave the theater again. In other words... "Fe astudiodd gerddoriaeth gyda'i dad, oedd yn arweinydd seindorf yn, ac yna ym Mhrifysgol Ial. Ei gyfansoddiadau fe fyddai..."