Why do we love these movies? The Fast and the Furious series has to be one of the most willfully stupid but enduringly fun franchises in all of cinema, and with the ninth (tenth?) entry speeding toward us quicker than big Vin can say the F word, I think it's time we go back to the beginning, and work our way right through the Fastverse on the road to F9. It's funny that a series about street racing turned into one that features some addictively cartoonish scrapes, but at its best, that's exactly what these films are, and I think that's worth exploring a little bit. So let's do it, and rewind the clock all the way back to 2001 to see where it all began...
The Fast and the Furious follows undercover cop Brian O'Connor in his attempts to infiltrate a gang of hijackers run by Dominic Toretto. As the mission goes on, O'Connor finds himself integrating further and further into the gang, bonding with Toretto and struggling to carry out his duty
For a series that garnered a reputation for huge, borderline sci-fi setpieces, it's funny how simple this film is. It's essentially Point Break with more DVD player theft, but not as good as Point Break and also not as delightfully homoerotic as Point Break. No, this is pure 2000s, all radical in-engine CGI effects and thumping hip-hop needledrops. To be fair, it holds up better than I thought it would, even if it does start a little rough. It only shows its age when compared to what followed it, although there's more than one line of dialogue that feels a little too 2001 for comfort. The plot's thin, even by this series' standard, and the Bigelow-riffing never feels anything more than lazy. The film never really expands on the cop-infiltration plot as much as Point Break does, and so it just feels kind of... underdeveloped
The same goes for the characters. Paul Walker was always the heart of the Fast films, but Brian had some rocky beginnings in this film. He's not even bad, he's just.... Johnny Utah, but with none of what made Keanu Reeves likable in that film. And no, I'm not going to fill this post with "pOiNt BrEaK DiD iT bEtTeR", but to be honest, there's a lot from this film that borrows from Point Break without ever really justifying that or doing anything interesting or different with it. Actually, that's a lie, because Dom in the first film is no Bodhi, I can tell you that much. I love Vin Diesel's gradual progression into a lovable chunk of biceps and good values but he's just so dull in this film, and it's hard to invest in his relationship with Brian when neither of them behave and speak like people. And that's a problem felt by the whole cast, unfortunately
It's not hard to see why most of these characters didn't become permanent fixtures in The Family, and with obnoxious turns and awful dialogue, I'm really happy that the road ended here for Jesse and Leon, and even happier that Vince came back less whiny in Fast Five. The super-charged magazine cover aesthetic comes at the cost of having characters we can actually care about. I mean even the most radical of 90s thrillers- which this weirdly insists on being despite the fact that it's from 2001- had characters that were at least memorable, but even the ones who'd go on to become fan favourites just come out of this looking painfully underwritten. And yeah, maybe you could argue that's not the point of an actioner like this, but isn't it? Think of what's great about this franchise and you inevitably come to characters like Han and Hobbs that have really become mainstays and taken on lives of their own as far as the series is concerned. It's an easy criticism to say that this film fails where its successors triumph but it's interesting to see what the Fastverse improved on as it progressed
Alright, we've had our fun jabbing at this film's many central issues, but what's good here? Well, bizarrely, this film has a lot of really solid jokes. Yeah, bar the few that aged like milk, I was actually surprised at how often the film stopped to set up a gag, and even more surprised at how many of them landed. Something as simple as Letty absolutely ploughing a tough guy out of it in an impromptu race is obvious but hilarious, especially with how dreadfully seriously the rest of the film takes itself. Having said that, there's also a lot of lines that made me laugh for all of the wrong reasons ("NOBODY LIKES THE TUNA HERE!"). There's also something to be said for its beautifully dated aesthetic, which actually feels pretty endearing 20 years later. I don't know, there's something kind of charming about a film that's so invested in how cool and wild it is with zero self-awareness. It feels kind of... innocent? Yeah, weird to say I know but honestly it's the truth, and something that really made me smile
And even though most of the characters come up thin, I do think that Mia feels pretty decently established from the start. She's not the most well-rounded character but at least it feels like Jordana Brewster knows what she's doing, and the fact that the character stays pretty constant from here on out is something that I think this first outing can take credit for. The action is also pretty fun. Alright, maybe looking back now, it seems tame for a franchise that is 10000000% going to end with Dom and the gang travelling through time, but I do think the race sequences are thrilling, and the chases feature some pretty exciting action that holds up even now. It's both fast and furious- mindblowing I know- but the title really sums up director Rob Cohen's MO when it comes to putting this stuff to screen. Again, some of it feels a little basic, especially compared to 5's safe chase or 7's zombie cars but there's definitely something to be said about humble beginnings
And they don't get more humble than this. The Fast and the Furious is a weird one. It was a rough note for the mega-franchise to start on, and I'll say once more that it certainly ain't Point Break, but for what we did get, it could have been worse. It just feels like a very middle of the road car film, and I'm so happy that they ended up taking it in the direction they did because I really can't imagine this franchise being as successful or enjoyable as it is if it had continued on this path. Still, there's fast cars and guys being dudes, so thankfully some things haven't changed too much
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