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| This poster for Rob Cohen's The Fast and the Furious prominently, wisely, unimaginatively features its hot young stars over a racing car |
The Fast and the Furious is the first film in the Fast and Furious franchise, which to date comprises 7 movies in total, with more on the way. It has loaned its titled from the 1955 AIP movie, but nothing else. It is based on the Vibe article Racer X by Ken Li, written by Gary Scott Thompson (Split Second (1992)), David Ayer (Sabotage (2014)) and Eric Bergquist and directed by Rob Cohen (xXx (2002)).
Brian is a new racer in the exciting LA racing scene, who tries to get closer to the group surrounding the respected Dominic Toretto, whose sister he falls for. And while the group gets into trouble with some Chinese goons, Brian's secret becomes pressing...
The film has a story that moves forward with development for especially the two main characters, which is satisfying, and it is also cast well: Paul Walker (Takers (2010)), Vin Diesel (Babylon A.D. (2008)), Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar (2009)) and Jordana Brewster (Annapolis (2006)) are all game, fresh, sexy faces (and bodies...) who became stars on the back of this wildly successful ride. Rick Yune (The Fence (2001)) plays the Chinese hoodlum.
The concept is simple: Every dialog scene is written with bountiful sexual undertones, and the actors send each other raunchy looks again and again, which luckily don't all respect the overall heterosexual identity of the film. This makes it more exciting to watch. It is in many respects like a porn movie, only with the sex replaced by racing and other action scenes.
The film is aimed squarely at a very young teen audience, so the characters pretty much act like 13-15 year-olds, which is distracting and hard to believe for anyone above the target audience. This makes The Fast and the Furious even more corny than it needed to be, and hard to really fall for for someone like me.
Still it is an admirable vehicle, (excuse the pun): The action works, (although the continuity in the NOS-driving scenes are a little off), and the chemistry and pace is right. No wonder this seriously lit the lucrative youth demographic's underpants on fire.
Related review:
Fast & Furious franchise: Fast & Furious 5/Fast Five/Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist (2011) - Dwayne Johnson refuels the world's probably most ridiculous franchise
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 38 mil. $
Box office: 207.2 mil. $
= Big hit
[The Fast and the Furious was released June 22 and runs 106 minutes. Filming took place mainly on locations in LA and other parts of Southern California from July - October 2000. Both Rodriguez and Brewster had to learn how to drive to be in the film. The film opened #1 to a dreamy 40 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it was beaten off the place in its second week by A.I. Artificial Intelligence and grossed 144.5 mil. $ (69.7 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 9.2 mil. $ (4.4 %) and Germany with 7.6 mil. $ (3.7 %). The Fast and the Furious is rotten at 53 % with a 5.4 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of The Fast and the Furious?
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