THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS

In the movie Paul Walker (The Skulls, Joyride) plays Brian, an undercover MAPD officer who goes undercover in the underground illegal street racing circuit to investigate a ring of truck robberies performed by a gang of skilled drivers. Little does Brian know that he lets his heart get in the way of his job when he gets close to the gang leader Dom played by Vin Diesel (Pitch Black, Boiler Room), and his little sister Mia played by Jordana Brewster (The 60's, The Faculty).
    This was a very popular movie back in 2001, and I can see why. This is such a fun movie to watch. The action and fast hotrods will get any viewer pumped up, but this is mostly suggested for male viewers. The action scenes are excellent if a little farfetched, and the characters are so cool. We get to see alot of cool stunts performed with the great looking hotrods and they never fail to deliver. One technique in this movie that I did enjoy was the way whenever a hotrod would rev up, we'd zoom through it's engines to see it start. It was un-conventional but very cool. We get to know right off the back that this is going to be one hell of a ride and we're taken along with them.

There were many problems with this movie. One, the actors weren't any good. We have Paul Walker who was pretty stiff and unemotional in this role as a cop which I didn't buy to begin with, then we have Vin Diesel who's no Al Pacino himself. He hams it up alot in this flick, and always seems like an amateur. Sure, he was the coolest character in the entire film, but he was still pretty sucky. Then we have Michelle Rodriguez who's grossly underused and badly used at that, then there's Jordana Brewster who's barely believable as the love object of the hero. To finish it all off, there's the cliched and predictable storyline. We know the cop is going to fall in love with the girl, we know he's going to get close to the leader of the gang, we know he's going to find out, and we know in the end he's going to let the leader get away. I wasn't surprised and didn't care much. Oh well, this may be a cheesy movie, but it's a fun cheesy movie.

A fun, action-packed, yet flawed action movie for the guys and gearheads.