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Spoilers for a 25-year-old movie.
Ten films and counting, and a whopping $7.5 billion at the box office, there’s no doubt that the Fast Franchising is an incredible juggernaut. But it has humble beginnings as a street racing movie with little games. that movie, The Fast and the Furiousnow 25 years old. So how does the film fare after all this time, especially given how important the franchise has been over the years?
So let’s get the obvious out of the way: yes, The Fast and the Furious basically he is just a poor man Break pointbut with cars instead of tables. The film stars Paul Walker as Brian, an undercover LAPD officer working with the FBI investigating a series of targeted truck jacks, mostly containing DVD players with a total value of over $6 million and counting (oh, how times have changed!). Law enforcement believes the thieves are part of the street racing scene, as the tire tracks left at crime scenes are popular with street racers. So Brian is sent to infiltrate the life and world of Dominic Toretto, the undisputed champion in the street racing scene, so he knows him or is the prime suspect.
Now the movie is not very good. It is very clunky at times, especially in the first act, as it tumbles from place to place like nothing more than extended music videos with very wooden/strong acting. I understood that there is “read between the lines” to show it earlier, like Harry realizing that Brian is a cop without ever saying it, but the whole opening comes across as more style than substance. The film discovers its characters once it is revealed that Brian is a cop, which happens about 40 minutes into the film. Vin Diesel also has a lot more to do here in terms of playing Dom compared to any of the other films in the franchise. The scene where he talks to Brian about losing his father in a car accident during a licensed race, and then nearly kills the other driver in the race, has weight and merit. Rounding out the cast are Jordana Brewster as Mia, Dom’s sister and Brian’s love interest; Michelle Rodriguez as Letty, Dom’s unconscious girlfriend; future Bond villain Rick Yune as Johnny Tran; Chad Lindberg as Jesse, the mathematician among the group; and Matt Shulze as Vince, Dom’s best friend who hates and trusts Brian with a vengeance. silence of the lambs Ted Levine introduces him as Tanner, Brian’s professor at the LAPD.
And yet, despite the problems that are very present in the opening, the film somehow works. It has a lot of things working in its favor, which is partly why it’s so iconic. Unlike later films in the franchise, this is a smaller scale film. So there are no cars flying into space or between skyscrapers. This is an established film, and a surprising number of the stunts in the film are killed in camera, especially the road robbery scene near the end of the film and the final race between Brian and Dom along the railway. The first real street race, the one at night with Ja Rule, feels very janky and dated, thanks to a lot of CG used to give the illusion of speed, but other races/stunts in the film hold up well, even if the stunt doubles are obvious. But I’ll take a Paul Walker stunt double jumping from a car to an 18-wheeler or a car floating in the air almost over CGI slop any day.
But perhaps more importantly, the film captures the spirit of street racing culture in the early 2000s. The film is synonymous with its depiction of street racing, thanks in part to the use of hundreds, if not thousands, of real-world extras who brought their own cars for the film. It captures the style (date) of the culture (so much Von Dutch!), the flashy tuner import cars, and the subcultures between the racers. Often, when a studio uses a subset of youth culture at the time, it feels like that Steve Busemici meme, “Hello, fellow youth”. But The Fast and the Furious this problem does not exist; it feels very real, and because it was so popular, it became a cultural touchstone.
The Fast and the Furious it may not be the best film in the franchise (I’d argue it’s the fifth film to claim that honor), but it’s the truest and most authentic to the time and culture. Street racing culture is lightning in a bottle in a way that felt real and engaging. Is it useless compared to Break point? There are. Is it clunky? Also yes. Is it fun and memorable? Completely.
