Chassis
Yesterday I watched The Fast and the Furious (2001), first in a series of popular car-oriented action films starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, and Michelle Rodriguez, herself a 9.9 on a one to ten scale of hotness. Three-fourths of the way through, a phone call interrupted me; the conversation stayed in my mind for a while as I resumed with the movie. My brain wasn't present for the film's next twenty minutes.
I watched it a second time in the evening, full concentration. The shiny cars, fast and zippy, street racing coordinated with police scanners. Smoldering gazes. Music video editing, basic dialogue consisting of grunts and brief egocentric statements. An undercover LAPD cop (handsome Paul Walker) driving as an infiltrator of the street racer world, investigating four teams (Black, Hispanic, Vietnamese, White/Off-White) as potential suspects in armed robberies of trucks moving electronics. Brian, the undercover cop with the Irish surname, identifies more and more with Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel), White/Off-White Team Leader. Dom served two years in prison, would rather die than go back. His father, a racer, died when one of his competitors forced his car against a wall at 120 mph. Dom beat the guy senseless with a wrench, hence the prison time.
Halfway through my first viewing I stopped expecting the film to be more dramatically meaningful on a human level. Directed slickly and colorfully (each frame busy with activity) by Rob Cohen, The Fast and the Furious strikes me as an art film about an illegal sport, not endowed with depth in character development but replete with the study of surfaces, a worthy thing to ponder by itself. The beautiful cars, like shiny beetles moving at impossible speeds for insects on the night's black pavement are decorated with cat or dragon emblems. Brian's lime green car (paid for by the LAPD) has brilliant green light projecting downwards. Like the other racing cars, it's equipped with nitrous oxide tanks. When injected, more oxygen becomes available to the engine. With more oxygen, more fuel can be injected which translates to more power. Spelled out as NOS, the racers pronounce it as "Naas."
I like that the film projects self-confidence even as it offers a familiar undercover cop story (with accompanying sense of betrayal) as if it's a fresh idea. Here, Cohen's artistry at putting together beautiful surface elements, including Paul Walker, whose face resembles in its aesthetic perfection an ancient Greek bust, pairing him with Jordana Brewster (looking fabulous and natural like the young Ali MacGraw) as Dom's sister; plus an array of beautiful young women in shiny leather--car groupies, girlfriends--along with the great film charisma of Michelle Rodriguez, contributes strongly to a fun film viewing.
Having seen only trailers for this film series (there are now eight of them) I made fun of it. One time I was the only audience member laughing out loud in a crowded movie theater. I couldn't understand why no one else found the trailer funny, the dialogue poorly written, the premise absurd.
As people these days like to say, It is what it is.
If you want to see an entertaining movie that won't make you think but will demonstrate what can be done with good editing, actors and actresses who can play essentially comic book characters, and a premise based on the ever popular concept of zooming, The Fast and the Furious is for you. I suspect it would appeal to movie lovers who don't analyze much if at all, as well as to those, like me, who think about every film seen.
Vic Neptune
I watched it a second time in the evening, full concentration. The shiny cars, fast and zippy, street racing coordinated with police scanners. Smoldering gazes. Music video editing, basic dialogue consisting of grunts and brief egocentric statements. An undercover LAPD cop (handsome Paul Walker) driving as an infiltrator of the street racer world, investigating four teams (Black, Hispanic, Vietnamese, White/Off-White) as potential suspects in armed robberies of trucks moving electronics. Brian, the undercover cop with the Irish surname, identifies more and more with Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel), White/Off-White Team Leader. Dom served two years in prison, would rather die than go back. His father, a racer, died when one of his competitors forced his car against a wall at 120 mph. Dom beat the guy senseless with a wrench, hence the prison time.
Halfway through my first viewing I stopped expecting the film to be more dramatically meaningful on a human level. Directed slickly and colorfully (each frame busy with activity) by Rob Cohen, The Fast and the Furious strikes me as an art film about an illegal sport, not endowed with depth in character development but replete with the study of surfaces, a worthy thing to ponder by itself. The beautiful cars, like shiny beetles moving at impossible speeds for insects on the night's black pavement are decorated with cat or dragon emblems. Brian's lime green car (paid for by the LAPD) has brilliant green light projecting downwards. Like the other racing cars, it's equipped with nitrous oxide tanks. When injected, more oxygen becomes available to the engine. With more oxygen, more fuel can be injected which translates to more power. Spelled out as NOS, the racers pronounce it as "Naas."
I like that the film projects self-confidence even as it offers a familiar undercover cop story (with accompanying sense of betrayal) as if it's a fresh idea. Here, Cohen's artistry at putting together beautiful surface elements, including Paul Walker, whose face resembles in its aesthetic perfection an ancient Greek bust, pairing him with Jordana Brewster (looking fabulous and natural like the young Ali MacGraw) as Dom's sister; plus an array of beautiful young women in shiny leather--car groupies, girlfriends--along with the great film charisma of Michelle Rodriguez, contributes strongly to a fun film viewing.
Having seen only trailers for this film series (there are now eight of them) I made fun of it. One time I was the only audience member laughing out loud in a crowded movie theater. I couldn't understand why no one else found the trailer funny, the dialogue poorly written, the premise absurd.
As people these days like to say, It is what it is.
If you want to see an entertaining movie that won't make you think but will demonstrate what can be done with good editing, actors and actresses who can play essentially comic book characters, and a premise based on the ever popular concept of zooming, The Fast and the Furious is for you. I suspect it would appeal to movie lovers who don't analyze much if at all, as well as to those, like me, who think about every film seen.
Vic Neptune
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