Fast and Furious (Wednesday, August 5, 2009) (107)

I think I saw the first movie in this series, The Fast and the Furious, but I think I missed the second, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and the third, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Still, the latest one, Fast and Furious (no articles, please) is a lot of fun and a great action ride. (By the way, is that Fitzgerald book 'The Beautiful and Damned' or 'The Beautiful and the Damned' or 'Beautiful and Damned?)

Vin Diesel is upset that his girlfriend and fellow car criminal Michelle Rodriguez (who is gorgeous as always) was killed when a drug deal she was driving a fast car in went south. He teams up with Paul Walker who is an FBI G-Man who also has a soft spot for fast supped-up cars (Walker likes Japanese imports, Diesel likes American muscles – this is tension in the auto world, I guess). The two infiltrate a Mexican drug gang who bring drugs across the border via fast rides. The gang's m.o. is to bring drugs into the U.S. through the desert border in Arizona or Eastern California in fast cars - a totally unnecessary and device, but one that allows for fun races through mountain interior cave roads.

The story is incredibly simple and nice. We don’t need six layers of complexity and crosses and double crosses. The car chases are exciting and well shot with lots of near crashes and jumps and explosions. There’s one especially clever race at night in L.A. where the drivers have to follow a GPS device along a specific route in order to gain a coveted spot on the gang’s car convoy. As Walker is going along and gets off the recommended path, he finds himself with an angry GPS-device lady-voice – the way many of us have found ourselves in the past. It was fun.

Overall this is not a work of high art, but it is easy and tight and well done. I probably would not seek this out to watch again, but I would watch for a bit if I ever found it on TV or an airplane.

Stars: 2.5 of 4