THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS review

Ya know, it might have just been the environment that I saw the film in… The audience that filled that South Austin Metropolitan Theater in Austin, Texas… Maybe it was the influence of the BEAT radio disc jockey being the all time best emcee in advance of a film this side of Tarantino… Buzz ruled… Maybe it was the fact that nearly every single person in the theater was wearing some sort of ‘car shirt’ Nascar, Stock Car, Monster Truck rallies, Art Car shirts… just everything under the hood…

The girls in the theater were of every ethnic background and I’d say the average waist size was about 12 inches with the busts easily exceeding 36 inches… They came out of some bizarre fetishistic Motor Car Rally Car Wash Magazine… and they were everywhere.

I’ve been to well over a thousand advance screenings in Austin, Texas and I’ve never seen this audience at a single one. How the hell was this recruited, it was amazing. Not a single friend was willing to be dragged to see this film… not one of them had faith that it would be fun…. They all believed it would be boring tedium lameness like the dreck known as DRIVEN.

Rob Cohen has a single film in his background that I enjoyed, though it was flawed… DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY, for a Bruce geek like me… I was astounded when it didn’t blow like a gale… He is often attached to projects that in theory could be cool. Often times look cool in advance… Sometimes even having cool buzz… But in the end the end up on the side of the road like so many armadillos.

Well, there were two reasons I was sitting in this theater. I like Vin Diesel. I loved the vibe he gave off in PITCH BLACK… He was the only thing I dug about THE BOILER ROOM… And that damn great short film of his, STRAYS, well… if nothing else it draws a line between him and the ‘typical action star’. There is genuine talent behind that bass voice. And if you saw MULTI-FACIAL… well, you saw another wonderful short film of his. Sure SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is the best feature film he’s been in, but really… he wasn’t showcased at all, but what he did was really quite good. And if the whole HELLBOY film comes together… I can’t wait to hear Vin’s voice coming from Mignola’s creation.

However, the other reason I wanted to see this film was an itch… A feeling that one of these damn fast driving, adrenal flicks would have to work. GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS was horrendously non-exhilarating. DRIVEN was perhaps one of the worst edited and executed films I’ve seen in years in a finished form.

These two disasters aside, there have been some amazingly fun racing… fast car flicks… TWO LANE BLACKTOP comes to mind, as does DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY… There’s THUNDER ROAD which is my favorite fast car flick.

The genre is not inherently terrible, it is just that modern editing techniques… the way they cut these films to shreds where you lose the entire sense of speed… Well, for a master lesson on how to put speed on film… Watch the brilliant MAD MAX 2 (aka THE ROAD WARRIOR).

During that film you get the sense that as you are sitting in your safe theater seat, YOU COULD DIE WATCHING THE FILM. Watching that masterpiece, I inevitably find myself gripping my seat arm… at radical turns, or skids I find myself grinding my teeth a bit. And immediately upon leaving the cinema I find myself driving at extreme speeds without even thinking…. Because the film acclimatizes you to think that the stripes on the road have to become a solid line… so without thinking after a great car racing/speed flick… you could find yourself pushing 100 miles per hour and getting locked in jail. And if you ever really want to piss of an officer, just try and blame it on the movie. Dear lord, out comes the nightstick and it is time to feel a bit like a well-prepared flank steak.

All of this is my way of saying… there is a valid visceral form of racing and auto-speed filmmaking that can be an absolute blast in cinemas… it is just very rarely that a film actually makes you feel motion, and I’m not talking about shaking the camera at jittery BLAIR WITCH vomitrama styles… I’m talking about FRENCH CONNECTION speeds.

Well, I don’t know what got into Rob Cohen… I don’t know where this film came from in him… But while the movie is pure B-film all the way, the driving… the racing and the moment they get in the cars (which is a damn fine length of the film.) Well, hold on.

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS has scary speed in it. Not just told with the camera, but in a soundtrack… both Rock style and sound effects wise… that literally shakes the hairs on your balls and tugs on your sternum.

The sound mix on this film is so good that I left the theater thinking that my hair must be knotted to death because of the wind I had going through my hair… It is intense.

In a good B movie style all the characters are clearly drawn in mostly stereotypical fashions. You have the nerdy smart high school drop out engineering whiz kid…. The tough car loving gal…. The buddy thug… the tough as nails badass leader of the car gang…. The evil rival gang leader… The undercover cop Ken doll…

Watching this film, you can’t help but think POINT BREAK…. But if you are film educated at all, you can go back to WHITE HEAT which has the same formula… or KISS OF DEATH with Victor Mature and the amazing Richard Widmark (in one of the best cinematic crazies ever!) Now, THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS isn’t a pimple on the ass of those last two films, but I really feel it kicks the teeth out of POINT BLANK. But if you are a Keanu-fetishist or a surf-lover… I suppose that film might be better for ya… BUT for me? FAST AND THE FURIOUS has it all over that one.

This is pure formulaic filmmaking in the terms of root story and character. But they get what you have to get right in a car film, the speed. The film made me grind my teeth, grip my chair and lean at turns… I made my brake foot press harder into the theater cement floor. And literally the sound mix was so incredible and played so perfectly at this theater that there were aural tones hit that sent cold chills and shivers up and down my spine.

Now… I walked out of that screen in a bit of a daze… I was in no way prepared to have the fun I had with that flick. I run into a group of about 5 film critics my age that do TV and print work and they look at me and say, "Did that movie kickass or what?"

I was so relieved. I had this conscious fear that this was going to be one of those films that I was the lone crazy man liking. So I decided to bring up some of the other physiological responses I noticed my body having to the engine noises… The trembling of my balls, 4 of the 5 confirmed they felt it too, the 5th was a woman without a sack, but she felt her chest and skin vibrate as well. Everyone felt the cold chills and spine-tingles that the sounds caused too.

My recommendation… If you like or think you could like a movie that throws you around with a great deal of speed… then find the theater nearest you with the best sound you have heard… that place where you probably saw EPISODE ONE… check to see if it is in the super sound and screen theater. If it is, then by all means go. OR, at the very least, if you have a badass home sound system, check it out with the sound system racked up to ‘neighbors call the cops’ sound levels when the film hits on DVD.

The racing scenes are too much fun, and they are not strictly this guy racing this guy scenes. They have more going on than the ‘sports movie’ formula. This is the POINT BREAK, WHITE HEAT formula instead.

Had this film cast someone with more going on in the eyes than Paul Walker… then this could have been more than just a fun movie. As it is, it is flawed, but a blast!