Fast & Furious: An ode to a great quadrilogy

We all remember back in 2001, when Brian O’Conner first (Paul) Walk[er]ed into our lives.  He was young, he was daring, he had a poor understanding of street-race shifting, he was just an undercover cop with a job to do… and a love for rice rockets.  Who knew when the franchise first began that it would blossom into such a furious flower?

In the previous installment of The Fast and the Furious series, we followed the brass military son, Sean Boswell.  Director Justin Lin shifted the race thirsty audience into the gears of the drifting world.  We were taken to Toyko. Where there was drifting, where no girl wore a skirt that went below the middle of their thighs. It was a racing world spun upside down.  It wasn’t about just having the fastest car anymore.  It was about have the grace and the technical ability to master the drift.  At the end of the movie, we saw the triumphant return to the screen of Dom.  As my the lights went up my friend excitedly turned to me and said;  “THAT BRINGS IT FULL CIRCLE!”

He was right.  Bringing Dom back after his absence from the successful sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious was a great move by the writers of this epic quadrilogy.  At that point, the world had filed The Fast and the Furious Triology away as the most successful trilogy in the history of trilogies.  We anxiously awaited the box-set complete with carbon fiber DVDs and Free 2 oz NOS bottles.  But then something that no one expected happened…

Fast and Furious was born.

I had been anxiously awaiting the release of the final piece to this beautiful tale.  The movie opens with our consummate antihero Dominic Torreto and his beautiful anti-heroine in tow, Mia.  They’re in South America and they’re stealing gasoline from truckers on deserted roads to sell to underground racing leagues.  It would seem to be quite a niche market but apparently is very fruitful as shown by the stacks of foreign currency that Dom throws at his cohorts after a successful heist.  It becomes apparent that the heat is on Dom when Dom tells Mia that the heat is on and he has to leave. He leaves her 2 large stacks of non-descript foreign cash and leaves.  Then we cut to our confused bad boy/good boy Brian O’Conner.  He’s working for the FBI! Taking down Mexicans!  But can he really put the racing life behind him?

Important plot note:  One of the characters that is helping with the heist is a familiar face from Tokyo Drift, Han. When Han finds out from Dom that the heat is on, he says he’s going to check out the scene in Tokyo! THE DRIFT RACING SCENE THAT IS! Han was the one who helps Sean get his start!  This is crucial to fully understanding this movies chronological place in the full scope of the series!  Fast & Furious runs concurrently with Tokyo Drift! Its like Quentin Tarantino took Pulp Fiction and made it into four movies and showed them in a different order!  GENIUS!  Even better, is the fact that they don’t tell people it’s a prequel. It’s a bold movie to let this movie stand on its own legs.

But enough back-story, lets get down to my thoughts on the film.  I’m glad that no one working on this movie tried to make it something that it wasn’t. These films have always had awful acting, an awful concept for this “counter culture” that they’ve developed of underground racing, and a handful of moments that are just basically not possible in the none furious world.  I understand that these films get a bad rap for all these reasons, but if you can suspend all your beliefs and just watch, they can be quite enjoyable.  Who can watch one of those movies and not see how ridiculous they are.  Does anyone else realize how serious Vin Diesel must take himself?  Example: the reason he didn’t do 2 Fast 2 Furious was because he thought that the XXX series was going to be a better series to be a part of.  I bet he put a lot of deep thought into this decision. God help me if I ever have to make a decision like that in my life.  It’s like picking between my children! (I would pick whichever child had the best chance of being a professional athlete and allowing me to retire)

In closing, I would like to recommend this movie to people.  Unless you live in a part of the United States where you pay 10 to 15 dollars for movie tickets, which is fucking absurd.  I’ll save that one sided argument for another day.

by roninpowride
2 years ago