The Fast and the Furious

December 11, 2004

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 107 min Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

We love a good car movie. We love races, chases, crashes, jumps and most of all speed. Apparently we’re not alone as The Fast and the Furious is doing huge business already. The opening weekend numbers do not tell the entire story, if it were given the same number of screens as some of the other big summer releases the numbers would’ve been higher. In our area, every prime time show was sold out for the entire weekend.

The movie is a variation of a cop story that we’ve seen many times. A gang of street racers is hijacking big rigs. A rookie cop, played by Paul Walker, is sent undercover into the world of L.A. street racing to try to solve the case. The plot is both predictable and unbelievable starting with the fact that if you try to hijack a truck using a bunch of tiny Japanese imports, you’re likely to end up being nothing more than a bug splatter on the grill of a Peterbilt. But hey, who cares about plot here what we came to see is the cars and action!

And cars and action we get! The cars of choice here are heavily customized and souped up Japanese pocket rockets. These cars are loaded with intercoolers, multiple turbos and ample amounts of nitrous. To run with these boys you need to be able to turn a 10 second quarter mile.

Now pardon me while I rant about a problem we call “rice boys” as I fear this movie is only going to cause more of them. I’m sure you have them in your town too. You’ve seen ‘em, they take a Japanese import that is front wheel drive with maybe 120 HP stock, add an exhaust pipe the size of an oil can that makes it sound like a bumble bee, stick a spoiler on it and add paint and graphics to make it look like the cars in this movie. Except these guys do not realize that just putting performance decals on a car does not make it fast. In fact, alot of their mods slow the car down and in many cases they spend alot more on the stereo than they do under the hood. Quite frankly, we’re tired of having to trounce them at stoplights.

But I digress. In addition to the chases in this movie, we get some fights and some great action sequences during the truck hijackings with people transferring from car to truck the hard way. And the whole thing is set to a rocking soundtrack including Limp Bizkit among others. The movie is exactly what it appears to be on the surface, alot of fast paced eye candy laced together with a predictable plot.

We’re giving the movie 4 stars. The plot is just a little too weak to warrant a higher rating as you’ll find yourself thinking “come on, get back to the cars” anytime there’s more than 10 minutes of plot on the screen. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen often and the movie keeps things rolling. If you like car movies, go see it.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 4 Stars, Action, DVD, Jordana Brewster, Matt Schulze, Michelle Rodriguez, PG-13, Paul Walker, Vin Diesel