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Film Reviews

FAST & FURIOUS

By • Apr 2nd, 2009 •

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It’s not called FAST & FURIOUS: SCHINDLER’S LIST. Perfect reboot if you like the genre. Big crashes, property mayhem, and sparse dialogue.

The producers didn’t bother with a screenwriter but did hire crash experts. The dialogue is ham-fisted but there is not much of it. And there is no discernible acting. These are things the F&F audience is not going to pay for.

It could have used a screenwriter but I assume no one wanted to waste their great lines on a Vin Diesel opus.

With careers stalled, Diesel (who was seduced back with a producer credit), Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster return. In keeping with their characters, Diesel, Walker and Brewster do not bother using this as an audition for other roles. The producers should have left Brewster wherever she was. I would not have missed her.

On the other hand, Rodriguez is always fun to watch.

The ingredients that made the original THE FAST & THE FURIOUS a hit are here: car racing through a city and lots of crashes. Do we want sensitive scenes and tears? No! But they could have put in a hot sex scene with that hi-anorexic ball buster (Gal Gadof) who everyone feared and listened to for no good reason.

“The things I’m going to do for my country.” A gleeful Vin Diesel in XXX.

FAST & FURIOUS starts off in the middle of an exciting heist along a dangerous South American mountain stretch. What are Dominic (Diesel), his girlfriend Letty (Rodriguez), and their on-the-lam associates doing? Who knows and who cares? It’s clear they are just doing a job stealing a mammoth tanker filled with oil.

So now we know what has happened to Dominic and Letty when they failed to appear in THE FAST & THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT.

After this job, Letty wants to go back to the States, marry and have kids with Dominic. She wants to get a real estate license. Apparently, Letty has forgotten that Dominic is a wanted fugitive! He slips out on her and goes off. Later, his sister Mia (Brewster) calls him. He’s fixing cars in another third world country. Letty has been murdered. How Dominic slips back into the country to avenge his sister’s death is one of those Jason Bourne questions we leave to the cinematic code called “suspension of reality”.

Meanwhile, FBI agent Brian (Walker) is being hassled by his boss and co-workers for still being a maverick. The FBI is after a drug lord and his speed demon driving mules. I think. Anyhow, the drug lord is one reckless driver down, so he stages an audition for a driver on the streets of L.A.

Dominic and Brian both apply. This time, each are given a GPS-guided track to run. The winner gets the job. Perfect set-up for the video game to come.

With Letty gone, we only have sourpuss Mia still single after all these years. For Dominic, he’s after Letty’s killer, so it would be unethical for him to bed that starving chick with the attitude.

You don’t have to be forewarned by me of the movie’s shortcomings. FAST & FURIOUS delivers what you want if you want it.

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