Home Video: Fast & Furious

Fast & Furious
Directed by Justin Lin
Released April 3, 2009

This is a movie that shouldn’t really exist at all, but somehow it came to be, and that’s a marvelous thing. The first film in the franchise, the similarly-titled “The Fast and the Furious,” spawned two less-than-stellar sequels, “2 Fast 2 Furious” and “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.” Despite diminishing box office takes, a fourth film was green-lit and the unexpected, probably unprecedented reunion of the original cast occurred, pretending that number two and three never even existed. The way of looking at this movie is that it’s a completely unnecessary, absolutely supplementary film which no one was really clamoring for, but serves as a great piece of (you guessed it) fast and furious entertainment. And, wouldn’t you know it, this fourth film managed to out-gross the first one!

Like many supplemental film franchise installments, “Fast & Furious” doesn’t bother recapping the events of the first film and jumps right into the current lives of the characters. The film opens with a spectacular heist in the Dominican Republic which immediately ups the adrenaline and sets up the film’s speed-laced pace. The story isn’t really terribly important; it’s all about the cars and the racing. Bringing back the original cast is a lot of fun. No one can match the distinctive angry, arms-crossed stare of Vin Diesel, and though Paul Walker’s not very effective as an actor, it’s amusing to see him get all excited about driving a nice car. Again, the plot should be dismissed altogether since it doesn’t really make much sense, since the action and the thrills make up this ride.

Once suspension of disbelief is taken care of, the film is actually a pretty damn enjoyable trip. Getting on board at the start with the fact that the film doesn’t make a lick of sense ensures that the film will be an enjoyable, enthralling experience. A pitch-perfect epilogue humorously caps the film, and if this is your kind of thing, you’re likely to love it. It’s pretty much exactly like the first film, and if you’re eager to revisit that, see this film. Otherwise, stay far, far away; you’ll probably only like this movie if you’re expecting to like it.

B+