WHAT A RUSH!!!

Rating: Null/10 (10 September 2001)

You know, I've been noticing a trend. These past few summers, at least one action flick stands above the rest. "The Matrix" for 1999 and "X-Men" for 2000. After seeing this, without a doubt, "The Fast and the Furious" is THE best action film of Summer 2001!
I began my weeklong vacation in New York just before the weekend this movie was released. I was lucky enough to catch one of the first showings with a bunch of my cousins from all over the country. We were having a family reunion that weekend and we agreed that "F&F" was the film we needed to see as part of our celebration of togetherness. And in light of the fact that we were all guys (not to say that girls won't enjoy this film), we all knew we were in for a real treat because the movie deals with one subject of fascination to many young males: street racing.
The opening highspeed carjacking sequence showed us that everything from then on would be pure hype and adrenaline. It didn't seem to me that this film has a solid plot, save for the storyline of actor Paul Walker's character and his mission to probe and catch the carjackers from the opening scene. But that hardly matters if you came to see this movie for pure popcorn entertainment. If you worship cars and love beautiful babes, then you'll love "F&F"!
Through intense and often exhilarating speeding visuals, director Rob Cohen does a great job in giving the audience a first-hand experience of what it is like to actually sit behind the wheel, turn on the engine, and literally go VROOOMMMMM!!!!!
The actors perform pretty well with their tough but enjoyable attitudes. Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez are perfect and sexy as the girlfriends of Walker and Vin Diesel, respectively. Diesel has such a formidable and commanding onscreen presence, and I'm sure that the box office success of "F&F" will only further catapult him to Hollywood superstar status. And rapper Ja Rule has a short but memorable cameo appearance as a contestant in the film's first superhype drag race sequence.

For its amazing street racing and the coolest cars on the planet that I've ever seen, I vote for "F&F" to be the must-see action flick of 2001. To those other so-called "racer" films like "Days of Thunder" and "Gone in 60 Seconds," I've only got this to say: EAT YOUR HEART OUT!