A young undercover police officer infiltrates an illegal street racing gang in an attempt to discover who is behind a recent spree of truck hijacks. In other words Rob Cohen’s abysmal The Fast And The Furious is Point Break with hotted up cars in replace of surf boards. At least Point Break had some great action sequences, whereas the car racing in The Fast And The Furious is repetitious and lacks suspense. Not even the constant pumping soundtrack can raise the pulse of the paint-by-numbers action sequences.
The script resembles a mid-day soap opera. The lead male actors (including Vin Diesel) resort to unintentionally funny macho bravado instead of actually acting, while the lead female actors (Michelle Rodgriguez and Jordana Brewster) are such tokenistic additions to the film that it is difficult to even notice anything they do. Worse of all though, is the dialogue which is reminiscent of lyrics to a second rate hip-hop act that only a few teenage boys would listen to.
This film is also filled with bigoted conservatism that disturbingly is portrayed as normality. The stereotyped portrayal of differing ethnic groups is borderline xenophobic and the representation of women is pretty much pornographic.
Even the trashiest straight-to-video B-grade rubbish have at least some elements that justify the film getting made in the first place, The Fast And The Furious has nothing.
No stars
Originally appeared in The Big Issue, No. 134, 2001
CINEMA AUTOPSY 