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The
success of Fast & Furious has caught a few people by
surprise but for the life of me I don't know why. The film
is loaded with hot young actors, has a simple subject matter
as street racing and the trailer has been running in
multiplexes since early February. Universal has marketed the
hell out of this film to the point that it was destined to
make money.
The plot is uncomplicated and unoriginal. Paul Walker's
character is an undercover cop assigned to find out who is
behind a series of daring truck robberies by a group that do
their takedowns at high speeds. One of the robberies is seen
at the beginning of the film to set the pace but add nothing
to the mystery. Walker's cop is run by Ted Levine (his
second film this summer) and his unit is one of those joint
task force deals that is given one of Eddie (Carrie's dad)
Fisher's old Hollywood homes to work out of. Diesel is one
of the suspects and director Rob Cohen gives him a cool
introduction at the small store he and his sister (Jordana
Brewster) run. Girlfight's Michelle Rodriquez is Diesel's
girlfriend and part of the extended family of street racers.
In
the old days Furious would have been called a 'B' movie. It
would have been the first half of a double bill (man, I miss
those) and would have served to introduce new actors under
the old Hollywood star system. After the studio system went
away films like this were in abundance in the 70's so that
the drive-in crowd had something to see before the windows
got steamed up. During that era that would have meant we
would be seeing Nick Nolte as Walker, Lee Marvin as Levine,
Al Pacino as Diesel and someone like Valerie Perrine in
either the Brewster or Rodriguez role. The films of this
type also involved a certain amount of nudity but studios
these days seem to think audiences are afraid of nudity so
we get teased but no delivery. The plot for this movie and
ones done years past is simple and derivative of movies seen
before. At a certain moment this film I thought I had
wandered into a screening of the Katherine Bigelow film
Point Break. The endings for both films are exactly the
same.
The
script for this film was sort of laying around in what is
called 'development hell' at Universal until Rob Cohen
decided to do it and even then a young screenwriter named
David Ayer (U-571)
was brought in to shape it into the finished product we see
today. Since then Ayer has gotten really hot, he wrote the
upcoming Denzel Washington film Training Day and rewrote
novelist James Ellroy's The Plague Season (now called
4/12/92) that most are very high on for next year. I get the
feeling that the Levine/Walker scenes and the backstory of
Diesel's character came from him but I would need to get my
hands on the script before he was assigned the job to make
sure. We are also given a number of suspects here but aside
from the character played by Rick Yune it's impossible to
buy any of them. The dialogue is nothing to write home about
but the actors make it seem better than it is.
Director
Rob Cohen has tried a few times to make a hit film and with
this he finally made it. The last film he made was The
Skulls (sequel being planned) and he also handled
Dragonheart. Cohen works a few tricks into Furious by
showing us the interior of the engine during a race and also
letting us know what the driver is seeing when he's cruising
along at 140 miles per hour.
Acting
wise, I see why people are high on Paul Walker because he
has the look of someone what could be big but he still comes
off as another pretty boy type. He's almost doing an
imitation of Keanu Reeves in Point Break but is believable
as the young cop with conflicted feelings. Vin Diesel has
come along nicely; he has the presence and his voice draws
you in. He has a few great scenes here and his reaction to
finding out Walker is a cop is awesome; you feel the rage
and betrayal coursing through him. The actresses are just
okay though. Brewster is highly attractive but she isn't
really acting here, she's just along for the ride. You can
see the attitude come through in Rodriquez's performance but
she comes off as posturing. Rick Yune is also very good as
one of Diesel's rivals and one of the possible suspects. Ted
Levine is much better here than he was at any single moment
in Evolution.
So,
is Furious worth seeing? If you go into it expecting nothing
too challenging then feel free to do so. It never tries to
become anything that it isn't. |
