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2009's Fast & Furious is officially the fourth instalment of the Fast and the Furious series, but it seems more like a direct sequel to the 2001 original than a continuation of 2 Fast 2 Furious or Tokyo Drift. On top of Paul Walker's return to the series, Fast & Furious also brings back Vin Diesel, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez, making it a true reunion. And surprisingly, in spite of palpable sequel fatigue and the unshakable question of "Why the hell do we need yet another one of these films?", Fast & Furious is the strongest entry in the franchise so far. It's a routine follow-up, but it surpasses its predecessors in terms of technical proficiency and pacing, which compensates for dumb scripting.
Still hijacking trucks many years after the original film, Dominic Toretto (Diesel) cuts ties with his gang and flees to Panama after a job goes awry. However, when tragedy strikes and someone close to him is murdered, Dom returns to his old stomping ground of Los Angeles where he reunites with sister Mia (Brewster). Vowing to exact vengeance, Dom looks to infiltrate a gang of drug traffickers who were responsible for the murder of his loved one. However, his investigation soon leads him to cross paths with old friend Brian O'Conner (Walker), now an FBI agent working undercover to catch the same drug kingpin. Due to their shared goals, Dom and Brian reluctantly team up, infiltrating the gang of traffickers and acting as drivers for them for a drug smuggling operation.
Perhaps the most glaring things about this picture is how fucking inept the title is - the makers merely removed two uses of the word "the" from the first film's title and called it a day. What's wrong with The Fast and the Furious 4? Then again, it'd probably be erroneous to expect any sort of intelligence or rational thought in this series...
Fast & Furious' story is reminiscent of 2003's 2 Fast 2 Furious to an unmistakable extent. As a matter of fact, if Vin Diesel returned for the second entry then it most likely would've played out exactly like this fourth film. Nevertheless, Fast & Furious is surprisingly well-designed despite the (expected) familiarity. The film is more dramatically solid than its predecessors - it's a leaner, more well-paced film which cuts out as much melodramatic nonsense as possible. And let's face it, this type of approach is more preferable for such a B-grade actioner. However, leaner introduces problems of its own. The story is paper-thin, but the mechanics are frustratingly hard to decipher. Events suddenly occur without sufficient explanation, and the film confusingly jumps between locations (when and how did the gang get into Mexico?). Perhaps the filmmakers should've excised the superfluous romantic angle (which is undernourished as it is) and left more room for requisite plot exposition or development.
But we never expected a Fast and the Furious film to be backed by impeccable scripting, let's face it. What matters is the action and the direction, and in this sense the movie succeeds. Directed by Justin Lin, the film kicks off on a high note with a marvellous assault on a tanker truck across a perilous mountain road. Well-shot, well-edited, and extremely intense and exciting, it's indeed a riveting way to begin the film; immediately signifying that Lin has improved his filmmaking technique since the disastrous Tokyo Drift. Mercifully, it's also for the most part easy to follow the action scenes thanks to the skilful filmmaking (the shaky-cam/quick cutting nonsense is not as pronounced here). If you come to Fast & Furious seeking thrills, you will be rewarded with a thoroughly enjoyable actioner. The only technical downfall is that there are a few obvious uses of cartoonish CGI, which detracts from the appeal of old-school mayhem that the franchise is more or less built on.
The biggest surprise of this film is that Paul Walker doesn't suck. Walker was awful in the previous Fast and the Furious movies, so one would logically expect a repeat performance here. Fortunately, Walker has improved as an actor in his six-year absence from the series - his performance as Brian is grittier and more believable. He's not brilliant, but he's easily passable for this type of action film. Likewise, Vin Diesel was dismal in the original picture, but has returned to the series with style - he looks legitimately tough, and his acting is strong. The other performers fare worse, however, with John Ortiz making for a weak villain and with a wooden Sung Kang making a brief appearance. Meanwhile, Jordana Brewster and a very underused Michelle Rodriguez were recruited to fulfil the purpose of being pure sex objects, and they succeeded; delivering watchable but unmemorable performances.
Fast & Furious is a case of getting what you pay for. The film delivers fast cars, furious action set-pieces and a thin plot, and it doesn't have as many of the drawbacks that weakened its predecessors. This is easily the best instalment in the franchise so far, and fans of the series will no doubt walk away pleased. But while it seems unfair to criticise the expected shortcomings, it would've been nice if more effort went into the screenplay in order to deliver a more substantive production. Unsurprisingly, after this film's box office success, the executives over at Universal ordered another sequel: Fast Five in 2011.
6.1/10
