RECENT WATCHES: The Fast and the Furious (2001)

It might not be the most unexpected blockbuster in cinema history but I don't think anyone thought “The Fast and the Furious” would spawn a long-running, billion-dollar-grossing franchise back in 2001. It was a humble, mid-budget studio action movie starring the voice of the Iron Giant and one of the Deedles. The movie would court the audience of teenage motorheads to become a sizable hit. I remember this well, as the first "Furious" was a big deal among the countless redneck gear-heads I went to high school with. Being a bullied, mechanically uninclined nerd, I've never had any interest in “The Fast and the Furious” and dismissed it for years. As this simple car movie slowly transformed into a massive franchise, I figured it's about time I test-drive it for myself. 

A gang in suped-up cars are stealing millions of dollars in DVD players from truckers on the streets of Los Angeles. The cops send a young FBI agent named Brian O'Connor undercover to investigate. He quickly infiltrates a local street racing crew led by Dom Torreto, who is suspected to be the ringleader of the thieves. Brian soon finds himself wrapped up in Torreto's racing lifestyle, befriending him and starting a romance with his little sister. As it becomes clearer that Dom is involved in the heist, and as conflict looms with the local Triad family, Brian will be forced to choose between duty and brotherhood. 

It is not surprising that "The Fast and the Furious" was so popular among young men in 2001. It might, in fact, be the most aggressively 2001 movie I have seen. The film is scored to a blaring techno and hip hop soundtrack, with a heavy smattering of nu-metal. The characters are all sweaty, macho guys deeply preoccupied with proving their own toughness. A homophobic slur is dropped early on. Noted sexual predator Rob Cohen directs with a strictly juvenile eye. The camera often pauses to focus on young women in tight or revealing clothing, including a gratuitous wet t-shirt contest and girl-on-girl make-out session. A threesome is promised as a victory prize at one point and the sexually virility of the protagonists is often emphasized. That the plot revolves around DVD players only furthers how entrenched in the aesthetics, tastes, and attitudes of the time this film is. 

More than anything else, "The Fast and the Furious" is utterly fascinated with the frankly ridiculous car culture of the early 2000s. The shiny, neon-colored low riders with their fins, spinning rims, exterior lighting and oversized mufflers are lingered on more than anything else. What's under the car's hoods is similarly lauded. The word "Nos" is said so often that a drinking game devoted to its mention would quickly get one intoxicated. Pressing little red buttons on steering wheels, that make the cars go vroom-vroom, accounts for far more of the action then you'd expect. "The Fast and the Furious" is a testament to how a cool car is probably the eminent status symbol among young American men. Cohen's film is utterly desperate to appear cool, in the sweatiest of ways, and its fetishistic fixation on slick, shiny cars that go super-duper fast is the most obvious symptom of this ailment. 

I am defiantly not a car guy. However, I have been known to enjoy a good carsploitation flick, especially ones that prioritize daring stunt work over anything else. "The Fast and the Furious" does have some decent stunts. The opening scene features a low-rider sliding under an eighteen wheeler, which is so neat it's reprised during the second half. The finale features an impressive wreck that sends a car twirling through the air. The movie isn't necessarily bad looking, as Ericsson Core's cinematography occasionally engineers an arresting image, such as a shot of the glowing cars zooming through the streets of L.A. at twilight. Overall, there's a sun baked, sweaty sheen to the entire look of the movie, which is the closest it comes to genuine sexiness. 

However, it can't be overstated how much Rob Cohen's meat-headed sensibilities destroys his own movie. The shaky camera work and hyperactive editing renders more than one action scene difficult to follow. Cohen's burst of flashiness, seen in CGI zooms into the interior of the cars' engines, come off as more hopelessly lame posturing. As much as the film is about speed and risky racing, there's far too many shots of actors simply sitting in the driver's seat and looking excited. So much of "The Fast and the Furious" is like this, overdoing it in some regards and pulling back pointlessly in others.

This is definitely an annoying, dumb style-over-substance exercise. The script is blatantly derivative, hopelessly predictable, and frequently melodramatic. The movie barely has a third act, as the Triad gangsters – forgotten about for long stretches of the runtime – sluggishly emerge as the bad guys for the last few minutes. This turn-of-events is prompted by the murder of a character that is telegraphed so far in advance, the nerdy little guy might as well have had a target on his forehead the whole time. By the way, that last minute push into revenge movie theatrics actually has nothing to do with the FBI infiltration/highway robbery plot. Another example of how sloppy the writing is: An almost literarily faceless trucker wielding a shotgun is the primary antagonistic force for the end-of-the-second-act set piece. 

I can't help but wonder if the trio of credited screenwriters – which included a post-"Training Day," pre-directorial career David Ayer – were aware of how hopelessly lame the main storyline was. "The Fast and the Furious" is most compelling when focused on the bro-y bond between Brian and Dom. The contrived mechanics necessary to get Brian indebted into Dom's inner circle are ridiculous. This begins with him hitting on Dom's sister via tuna fish sandwiches and features frequent appearances from a blustering, suspicious side-douche named Vince. Ultimately, Brian and Dom become so close that Torrento is willing to share his tragic backstory with his new best bud. That moment is also the best display in the film for Vin Diesel's peculiar type of beefy, mush-mouthed charisma. Diesel and Paul Walker – youthful, angelically gorgeous, wide-eyed and blank – compliment each other in odd ways. Neither of them are good actors in any classical sense but there is a certain himbo charm to these two slabs of meat. 

The series of manly one-upmanships that brings these two closer will obviously play out from the first scene. The film is too beholden to dude-bro buddy flick classics like "Point Break" to swerve from that path. The high camp, homoerotic bonding between these two sweaty guys is still the most entertaining thing about "The Fast and the Furious." The film foregrounds Brian and Dom's bond so much that the hero blatantly ignores all the criminal evidence pointing at his new pal. The female love interests are non-entities. Jordana Brewster's Mia Torrento is a fawning perfect little sister that anyone could have played and Michelle Rodriguez's Letty is such a butch tomboy that she might as well have been a man. The movie is doubtlessly aware that the relationship between the two guys is the real love story here, as their bond is what the entire climax is built around. 

Ultimately, "The Fast and the Furious" panders so hard to the specific audience of 2001 teenage boys, hyped up on MTV style and utterly aggro in their attitudes, that it comes off as an ancient relic of another time and place today. I unfortunately knew too many of those kind of guys back then, and got shoved into lockers by a few of them, meaning much of the film's appeal is lost to me. When combined with a low-effort script, the result is a popcorn flick that only occasionally got me munching the kernels. The film needed a stronger director than Rob Cohen, someone who would focus more on practical stunts and heighten the campy queerness of its central relationship, to make it a real classic of the revved-up action genre. [5/10]