Review: Fast & Furious

by John Nolte

“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. (more…)

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Posted Apr 3rd 2009 at 5:34 pm in Reviews | 29 Comments