Fast & Furious (Universal Pictures)
Fast, Furious & Fatally Flat
Fast & Furious, the fourth edition of The Fast and the Furious franchise, is fast and furious to be sure, but it is also fatally flat in regards to characterizations and plot development. You get one exciting racing sequence after another but who are the characters the four leads play If you didnt know before this movie, you certainly wont know after it.
The film starts with Dom (Von Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) pulling off an impressive fuel heist. It all takes place on a mountain road in some place like Guatemala. It is breathtaking to watch but when it is over you dont know why it happened. Is Dom living completely outside the law And is Letty his partner in crime
Later a tragic event takes place that brings Dom back to the States. There he reunites with his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) and later his rival Brian (Paul Walker). Brian is back working for the FBI and he finds he and Dom are pursuing the same master criminal, a man named Campos (John Ortiz). They go undercover and agree to race cars for him in a hope he will hire one of them to do some of his drug business,
They both get hired and this leads to more exciting car races. A particular one through a mine shaft is so good it is repeated later in the film. And it is just as exciting the second time around.
The plot is not as clear as what I have described. You are never sure of who the bad guy is and who is the good. Are the FBI Agents the bad guys, particularly agent Stasiak (Shea Whigham), or is Dom a bad guy for his sins of the past
Diesel and Walker have their moments in the movie but neither comes across as a particularly good actor. Still they are heads and shoulders above Brewster who just walks through her role. Rodriguez has so much charisma she stands out just by showing up.
The film is rated PG-13 for profanity and violence.
Fast & Furious is an easy movie to sit through as it has one exciting scene after another. Still it would help if the actors were better, the characters more clearly defined, and the plot even halfway sensical. Maybe that will be done in the next installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise. The final scene in this one set that movie up completely.
I scored Fast & Furious a gas hogging 5 out of 10.
