Review: Fast & Furious

“The Fast and the Furious” came out of nowhere in 2001 to make a ton of money, spawn a franchise and I’d say for about two years afterwards I practically wore out the DVD. That little street-racing melodrama aimed for a target and squarely hit the bull’s-eye. It is everything it wanted to be; a perfect genre grinder.  Predictably abysmal sequels soon followed: “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003), weighed down with director John Singleton’s smug approach to racial issues and over- the-top CGI, couldn’t even deliver the racing thrills, and 2006’s “Tokyo Drift” (2006) took the muscle out of “muscle car” with a miscast Lucas Black, an otherwise solid actor, in the lead.

Hoping to reboot, the new “Fast & Furious” reunites the four main players from the original and is so stripped down and back to basics the title refuses to make room for even a “the” or an “and.” Within thirty minutes the story credibly and effortlessly reunites the cast (hat tip to the screenwriters for that) and a simple revenge plot is set up to allow for at least five major racing sequences, a couple of which are alone worth the price of admission.

Vin Diesel returns as Dominic — He Who Lives Life a Quarter Mile at a Time — Toretto and little’s changed since undercover FBI agent Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) let him go eight years earlier. Toretto may be a an American fugitive hiding out in the Dominican Republic always looking over his shoulder, but he’s still with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and still making ends meet with dangerously elaborate hijackings carried out on the open road.

The plot turns in ways I won’t spoil, and Toretto finds himself back in Los Angeles determined to hunt down a mythical drug smuggler who did him wrong. As it happens, O’Brien, who’s still with the F.B.I., is after the same smuggler and so the old adversaries, who share a wary respect, form an uneasy partnership in order to survive undercover and achieve a mutual goal.

It’s both good and bad that the opening — a brilliantly shot and choreographed sequence that has Toretto and Letty attempting to hijack an oil truck — is far and away the best scene in the film (and one of the best action scenes of the year).  With this jaw-dropper, “Fast & Furious” sets the bar pretty high and never quite reaches it again, but the goodwill the scene engenders gets you through the rest of a film that unfortunately gets worse and worse as time passes, though always remains highly watchable.

There’s a second racing sequence staged on the streets of Los Angeles that’s nearly as good, but most of the action afterwards is too obviously CGI’d and so busy and hectic you go a little numb as opposed to being engaged in the moment. But for all this, the reboot does reclaim the charm of the original with a refreshing refusal to reach for any ambition above and beyond taking you away for a couple hours. “Fast & Furious” is a Hollywood film with a plot involving drug smuggling over the Mexican border that never once mentions illegal immigration, and for that rare display of maturity and discipline we should all be grateful.

For years I’ve bitterly complained about the dreaded shaky-cam that at this point has spoiled too many films to count, including “Transformers” (2007), ”Quantum of Solace” (2008), the last couple “Bourne” films and the nausea-inducing “Cloverfield” (2008). Thankfully, F&F doesn’t force that dreadfully lazy style on us more than a few times, but the spectacular opening hijack, which is filmed normally, is immediately followed by a foot chase involving Walker’s character shot with the shaky-cam, and being able to see the two styles, one right after the other, closes the case on why all shaky-cams must immediately be destroyed for the good of the children.

How was your week? Did you whistle on your way to work or buy extra lottery tickets? Those of you who’ve pinned hope on the Lotto, “Fast & Furious” is for you; a couple easy, entertaining hours in the dark with fast cars, good-looking women, a brainless plot and a generous lack of pretention that washes over you for 107 escapist minutes. Sure, the dialogue’s clunky and the acting a little wooden, but that’s only a bad thing if you see it after work because  ”Fast & Furious” might be the most perfect Called-In-Sick-When-I-Wasn’t movie since the original “Aliens vs. Predator” (2004).