The Fast and the Furious Review

Imagine if they took the plot to the movie Point Break and instead decided to mix it with street car racing. That's literally the result of this movie. Officer Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) goes undercover and enters the street racing world to take down and convict the kingpin himself, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). The only catch is, he kind of falls in love with Dominic's sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster) as well as the street racing environment itself, and has to face the choices he has to make when it comes to doing his job, and being a true friend to the bros of street racing.

I can easily imagine a newcomer Hollywood exec was thrilled and greenlit the project immediately after hearing that shitty plotline. 

Nevertheless, the movie does offer us plenty of great action scenes and surprising chemistry with each character to make the movie more enjoyable than it sounds on paper. The street racing is pretty realistic as well since the production back in 2001 required the effects to be more practical and less CGI. Most the characters are memorable as well, but it's really the bromance of our two lead characters of Dom and Brian that are the main focus to this soon-to-be major franchise. 

This is probably the only movie in the franchise that takes itself more seriously than the rest do. It was just your average summer flick that got lucky at the box office back then before they turned it into what it is today (and I mean that in a good way). If you're still looking for a good racing movie with many memorable moments as well as characters to 65% give a shit about, then this one I can probably recommend.

***