Diesel voices one of the Cars in Pixar's... wait...
Directed by Justin Lin
Universal Pictures
By Brian Last
Fast and Furious? That’s exactly how the audience leaves the theatre once the credits roll. This is a fun movie, but there’s little to ponder once the show’s over. In this fourth installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise, Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, and Michelle Rodriguez reunite to reprise their roles from the original.
Things are kick-started when Brian O’Conner (Walker) and Dominic Toretto (Diesel) try to infiltrate a gang and bring them down. To do this they both go undercover as drivers for a drug cartel. Each has his own personal agenda. O’Conner is an FBI agent trying to crack a case and save his department while Toretto has a personal score to settle. Sounds fairly straight-forward, right? Well it is. Even for an action flick, the film has little intellectual depth.
There was potential for interesting conflict with Dominic and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) harbouring hostile and resentful feelings towards O’Conner for how the first film ended. But everything’s patched up with a smooth line from Walker before he jumps into a make-out scene with Brewster. Brewster’s role here is simply to be eye-candy: she does little to advance the story as it centres on Diesel and Walker. To add to that, the highly hyped duo are less than stellar as actors, considering Diesel’s monosyllabic, gruff underacting and Walker’s pretty-boy overacting. But walking into a Fast and the Furious film, the audience knows what they are going to get: fast, good-looking cars, over-the-top action sequences, and violence. And on that front, the film does not disappoint.
Admit this looks cool.
Quite apart from the rest of the film, the action is gripping, original, and impressively executed. The opening heist sequence, where they rip off an oil convoy, was actually quite clever and well thought-out. As this film series continues, the story builds, and in some measure, so do the characters. Fast & Furious touches on little details from the first film, including the car that belonged to Diesel’s father and that the house was exactly how it was left. Walker continues to battle with who he is as person. Does he really want to be a cop or is he better suited to a life of heists and racing? Diesel also has an epiphany about taking responsibility and not running from problems. Not quite deep stuff, but it’s a little bigger than just street racing now.
Even though the dialogue was weak and forced, the story unoriginal, and the acting lacklustre, the film delivers where it’s meant to. It was genuinely entertaining throughout. People roll their eyes when a new Fast and the Furious movie comes out. On the other hand, the series keeps making money, and audiences flock to see them, so they must be getting something right.
