Review: Fast and Furious (2009)
Latest Sequel in Fast Car Racing Actioner is All Fuel and No Body
Apr 5, 2009
Though it presents absolutely nothing new or innovative since the first of this four-movie franchise, Fast and Furious still manages to thrill fast car enthusiasts, with dazzling camera work and impressive muscle cars. Non enthusiasts will simply be checking their watches.
Fast and Furious Synopsis
It's been five years since the events of the original The Fast and the Furious, which had Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) facing off with the notorious Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). Now, as Brian O'Connor is let back into the FBI, the Bureau is still on the hunt for Toretto, and are following leads into a large smuggled shipment of heroin from Mexico, which has seen tens of millions of dollars' worth, making their way into Los Angeles, with no apparent explanation as to how it could have gotten past the border.
While Dominic is still living incognito in Mexico, a fugitive from the federal authorities (from his involvement in road and theft crimes from the original movie), he receives a frantic call one night, that his former lover Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) has been killed during a road race, and he clandestinely returns to the States, to attend her funeral from afar.
Seeking retribution against whoever is responsible for Letty's death, Dominic looks to work his way back into the racing circuit, having learned that an important drug lord named Braga is seeking talented fast drivers, to carry illegal cargo across the Mexico/U.S. border. As he does so, he comes across his old nemesis Brian. Though both have issues regarding how they last dealt with each other, both agree to set aside their differences in the hunt for Braga, which will result in revenge for one, and an important arrest for the other.
With the FBI apprehensive about Brian working with a wanted criminal, while also disapproving of his tactics, it is up to both gifted drivers to both stop the shipment of drugs from coming across, and stop Braga at all cost.
Fast and Furious Overall Analysis
While it is an interesting marketing approach to revisit the more successful film from 2001, it seems somewhat pointless to revisit such familiar territory, with so little original story to serve the fans.
Sure, a sequel starring the same four cast members which made the first film popular, will no doubt generate some boffo box office in the short run. That having been said, this paper-thin premise which mixes racing with a drug smuggling investigation, seems flimsy at best. It appears that the films steer further and further away from the concept of racing, with each sequel.
Justin Lin, the director of the previous installment The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, is back for a second run, and tries to maintain the highly kinetic visuals of the previous three films, throwing the camera around to convey the danger and speed of precision speed racing.
The main cast seems to phone in their performances, and it shows in their interaction on screen. It's fair to say both Diesel and Walker have had little success of late, with Diesel barely making a mark with Babylon A.D., and Walker having done little other than a handful of indie and family features (Eight Below, Timeline).
As for the female leads from the original, namely Jordana Brewster (as Dominic's sister Mia) and Michelle Rodriguez (as Letty), both seem wasted in the script, and are easily dismissed. Rodriguez disappears within the first act (her character's death obviously a catalyst for Dominic's quest for vengeance), and Brewster's Mia does nothing more than look worried, when she's not out buying groceries, or providing pointless plot exposition.
There are problems with some of the later action scenes, the main one involving a high intensity car chase through an underground mountain tunnel, used to smuggle drugs while providing a window through customs. Given that the characters are originally told to quickly drive through lest the tunnel exit close for secrecy reasons, why does the tunnel appear five times five times longer by the movie's climactic finale? This glaring error, may not seem like a major problem for some viewers, but others might ask themselves why the setting elongates itself, just enough to sync up with the time it takes Diesel to dispatch the villains.
The movie is messily edited, the dialogue is virtually absent, and the chase scenes are repetitive and tiring. If you are of the obsessive compulsive type, and wish to see Fast and Furious just to say you've seen all four, then by all means, this film is for you.
However, if you can't stand bad cinema, then skip this film altogether, and indulge in some NASCAR on the sports channel. Sure, their course goes round and round, but at least you know where it's going.
5 out of 10 for looking pretty to race car enthusiasts, but for essentially turning out to be a pointless and repetitive sequel.
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