Movies I Like #4: The Fast & The Furious

This is easily one of the best movies to ever be made and it's about my favorite topic: street car racing. Anyone who knows me knows that I love to go on and on about street car racing. You often can see me playing video games, or reading books and magazines about it. It's a shame I don't have a car, I would totally pimp it out to have a hemmy.

Anyway, this 2001 movie stars Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, two of the best actors of our time. Paul Walker is Brian, a street racing enthusist who wants to get into Vin's car racing "team". He does this by poking his nose into a street race one night by racing for pinks. You probably don't know what that means cause you aren't up on your car racing knowledge like me and the makers of this fine film are. Pinks means the pink slip which in "square talk" means the registration. So if Brian loses, Vin owns his car.

And we know we're in for a great movie when a rapper shows up. This time we get the delightful acting chops of Ja Rule, who I believe simply plays himself, which he does a good job of. So the race begins and we get a kickass CGI effect of all the great mechanical parts of the cars Vin and Brian are driving. But Brian blows his load too early and ends up trashing his car, making Vin the winner.


But soon the 5-0 show up and Vin thinks he can just hide his car and just walk in broad moonlight. Well, no. A cop spots Vin cause he's so damn unique looking that hiding is out of the question and Vin takes off on foot. Brian shows up and saves his ass.

Unfortunately they end up on someone else's "turf", belonging to Johnny Tran. Tran blows up Brian's car, which means Vin and Brian have to take a cab home. It's totally explained in the movie that Vin didn't wanna get the car he just hid. Just trust me. Watch the movie to see the explaination, I don't wanna spoil it.

Anyway, Brian and one of Vin's friends Vincent have problems with each other ever since they both beat the crap out of each other earlier that day. It's clear that Brian wants to get it on with Mia, Vin's sister and vice versa. And Mia is so hot. Most guys find giant foreheads a turnoff, but not me. The bigger the better I always say. And in that I mean their foreheads.


The next day, Brian gets pulled over by some cops. We don't know why until they arrive at some top secret house that the L.A.P.D apparently moved into at some point. I think this is a good idea. Houses are more comfortable rather then cold stone buildings with jail cells and the like. Anyway, we learn a SHOCKING TRUTH!!! SO shocking that I had to pause the movie and take several deep breaths.

You see Brian...(SPOILER!!! I hate to spoil such a fine movie but I need to continue on with how awesome this movie is, so yeah. Spoiler.)

IS AN UNDERCOVER COP!!!!

His mission is to find out who is hijacking all these trucks full of DVD players and whatnot. And the truckers are getting pissed off that all this hijacking is happening. It makes sense really. Cause truckers are too damn stupid to do anything when one of the robbers climbs from a car to their truck on a tightrope, so naturally they're gonna start arming themselves with shotguns and just blast these hijackers to kingdom come.


The police, lead by one Stottlemeyer, want to know who the hijackers are to save the hijackers lives. So they sent Brian to check out Vin's "team" to see what they're up to. And I gotta give it up to Paul Walker here. He's so convincing as a cop. I mean if he showed up with that small pistol that's obviously police issued and he said "Uh...police" I would be like "Yes sir officer!!" and put my hands up right away.

So anyway, there's a bunch more but you should see the movie, it's great. Brian slowly gains Vin's trust. Brian eventually boinks Mia. We get a "Godfather" like vibe in certain scenes. And there's even a lot of red herrings as to who the hijackers are! You'd think it'd be obvious but nope! This movie is very clever and keeps us in suspense until the end.

And of course there's tons of racing. Racing between regular people on the street. Racing between each other. And there's even some super secret race that's held in the desert so the police can't stop them. And the racers are very discreet too, sticking to only small numbers and not making a lot of noise. It's awesome.

And this whole desert race thing is so super important to the movie. I can't even begin to tell you. Eventually though, Brian reveals to Mia he's 5-0 and we learn (ANOTHER SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!! OK GOOD) that Vin and his gang ARE THE HIJACKERS!!! GASP!!! I didn't see that one coming, folks.

During a hijacking, which takes place during daytime because no body expects to be hijacked during the day, on the open road, Vincent gets shot and is trapped on the truck. Michelle Rodriguz, who plays Vin's girlfriend, crashes, but thank god she survived all that twisted metal that was left when the car crashed. When it looks like Vincent is gonna die on the side of a truck, here comes Brian to save the day!! YAY!!!! I was so excited during this scene I couldn't stay seated.

Vin learns the truth about Brian, but instead of beating him to a pulp he decides to seek revenge on Tran for putting a hit on Giovanni Robisi. Brian tries to stop this but Tran shows up and kills Giovanni. Dang and he was a likeable character too. I cried when this happened.

Between Vin and Brian, they stop Tran and his gang, and eventually race each other. Things look like they're gonna end happily, but uh oh! There's a train coming!! And I don't wanna ruin it but let me just say this: there's a reason why the sequel, which I'm so gonna rent next cause it looks awesome and was completely nessessary, only stars Paul Walker.

Anyway. This movie is just great. I loved every minute of it. The acting was great, the CGI effects was great. And the racing scenes didn't give me a headache. And I loved the fact that the movie didn't stick with one song during each scene. It was like there was a jukebox playing over the movie. I'm buying this soundtrack next week when I get paid. And I totally believed Michelle Rodriguz as a straight woman that loves to boink Vin Diesel. I can't believe she's a lesbian when she can make out with a hunk of man like that.


-Jason