The Gift of Elegant Trash

Rating: 9/10 (28 April 2001)

Roger Ebert once wrote that there are "good" bad movies and there are "bad" bad movies. But once in a while there comes along a truly "great" bad movie--a B-picture so desperately trying to claw it's way out of the confines of it's genre that you have to give it credit for nothing if not sheer guts.
To call Rob Cohen's "The Fast and the Furious" a "great" bad movie is a heady compliment indeed. There have been many attempts at films with similar subject matter that simply fall into the category of "bad" good movies (with Renny Harlin's recent car wreck "Driven" coming to mind as a picture of great means yet dubious end). The tale of rival street racers in Los Angeles, "The Fast and the Furious" sets itself apart with a strong sense of style and thoroughly exciting racing sequences.
In his past works, director Rob Cohen has displayed a journeyman-like quality behind the camera, making very professional, albeit serviceable films that have never been able to free themselves from the manacles of genre ("Dragonheart" and "Daylight" are but two such examples). But in "The Fast and the Furious" Cohen brings a heretofore unseen visual panache to the proceedings, turning a film that could have been a mindless exercise in action histrionics into an exciting, sardonic (yet admittedly still mindless) ride.
The film worked for me on a very visceral level, and the expert camera and effects-work were aided by a first-rate sound mix that added a great deal of intensity to the whole affair. Vin Diesel gives a performance that is all steely-eyed machismo and throaty growls in the place of syllabic speech. But it's a perfect fit for Paul Walker, who strikes all of the right chords in a role meant to register, I suppose, as Keanu-Lite.

Audiences will scratch their heads as motivations shift, loyalties twist, and logic is all but beaten into submission, but "The Fast and the Furious" is undeniably entertaining. It is garbage of the highest order, a ridiculously fun pastiche of genres, stock characters, and well-made set pieces.
You may be groaning at the film's idiocy, you may be cringing at it's over-the-top action, but I can almost guarantee that you'll have a smile on your face while doing it.