CSULB Online 49er: v8n124: 'Fast and the Furious' burns into theaters

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'Fast and the Furious' burns into theaters

By Jeanne Hoffa
On-line Summer Forty-Niner

At the climax of "The Fast and the Furious", the protagonists meet each other's icy stares and decide to settle all of their angst and betrayal with one last drag race whose finish line crosses the track of an oncoming train.

The screen throbs with the screech of engines, the barreling train, the floored gas pedals, the blaring whistle, the lightning speed; this is such an over-the-top spectacular scene that it caused an audience to erupt in spontaneous applause at a recent screening. Those people in the audience who left early are likely to be kicking themselves right now.

"The Fast and the Furious" takes you deep into the multiethnic, super-macho world of Los Angeles street racing, where all you need to belong is an obsession with cars, unquestionable loyalty or a lot of cash.

When the police set out to investigate a string of truck hijackings, they send the blond and affable Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), equipped with an $80,000 car and a mission to win over the gang so he can sniff around for clues up close. O'Conner's most difficult nut to crack is the grim, burly Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), an orphaned father figure who fiercely protects his motley crew and is suspicious of strangers, especially white boys who flirt with his sister.

How can he possibly be accepted? O'Conner challenges Toretto to a drag race using their respective cars. Crowds materialize out of nowhere, and a few thugs clear what had to be a five-mile stretch of downtown Los Angeles by knocking on a few car windows and telling drivers to get lost.

O'Conner loses, but shocks everyone by laughing about it. When the 180 miles per hour contest brings out the cops, everybody scatters. Just as the hoofing Toretto is about to get caught, O'Conner drives up beside him, opens the car door and helps him escape. A fabulous friendship is born.

"The Fast and the Furious" is a good-natured movie with lots of cool car chases and good-looking characters that can be enjoyed by anyone who makes no greater demands on action following the basic laws of cause-and-effect.

But when these guys pull stunts so outrageous that should have brought out the cops, the Fire Department, the Highway Patrol and the National Guard, but don't, it makes the audience wonder if this was supposed to be Los Angeles after the apocalypse.

Also, why do the police have to rent a palatial Hollywood home once owned by Elizabeth Taylor as its base for the hijacking investigation? Probably to house all that extra-special surveillance equipment and cadre of officers they had to bring in to crack the case. But gosh darn it, they get really testy with O'Conner when he destroys their car and asks for another.

Then there is O'Conner's central dilemma. Once he gets to know this group, sees their love for cars and their twisted but endearing sense of family values, he realizes they were just lured into a little bit of crime by some nasty evil rotten ninja guys on bikes, (we know the ninja guys really are bad because they never smile, they wear black and they intimidate the old shop owner by pumping oil down his throat...oh, and they carry guns).

Cops who find their suspects compelling, so much so that they want to let them go, could present a really interesting dilemma to explore onscreen. But the crime these characters commit is so inane, so violent, and so destructive that they should all be put away for ten years just for being morons.

Not to give the wrong idea. The hijackieng scene was the best. A little bit of "Mad Max" meets "Rambo." The gang surrounds a Mac truck with four cars going full speed. A guy in the car speeding in front of the truck shoots a harpoon through its window, then swings onto the hood like Tarzan. Unfortunately, they hadn't planned on the driver fighting back. The scene is hysterical.

There is much more to love about this movie. The inspiring philosophy: "It don't matter if you win by an inch or a mile, winning is winning." The hilarious dialogue: "Tell these two scanks to turn tail or I'll leave tread marks on their face"; the tender romance: (As one character places a racer's hand down her blouse), "Win or lose, you get these. But if you win", (pointing to her friend), "you get her, too." Charming.

If you do see this movie, (and some will--heck, there are folks content to watch cars drive in circles around a track) do stay until after the credits. The director slipped in a nice little surprise at the end.