Fast & Furious

Okay, so The Fast And The Furious wasn’t Shakespeare, but it was very enjoyable in a Point Break kind of way and much better than your average critic gave it credit for. However, despite a swiftly-forming fanbase, the franchise careered off the track with empty sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious (which saw only Paul Walker return) and self-contained third instalment The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift (which is only connected to the original via a quick Vin Diesel cameo).

Then, just when you thought it was safe to go back on those quarter-mile road-strips, a fourth in the series was commissioned. Happily, it’s nowhere near as bad as you might expect. Predictably, it’s much better than the previous two but not quite up the first. Interestingly, Justin Lin takes the driving seat after directing the Tokyo-set number three which went all Jaws 3 (get whole new cast, ignore continuing story and only stick with subject matter) and had the series heading for the scrap heap.

Following the murder of a loved one, wanted criminal Dominic Toretto (Diesel) infiltrates the drug cartel responsible in order to get revenge. However, as the FBI are after the same people, he ends up crossing paths with old buddy Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) and the pair have to put their past behind them in order to go undercover as drivers for hire…

Wisely deciding to reunite the four main characters (Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez return as Dom’s sister and girlfriend respectively), we finally get a sequel to Rob Cohen’s initial movie as many of the dangling plot-threads are dealt with and continued (in particular, the first hour is involving). Sure, this isn’t a deep movie by any stretch of the gear-shifting imagination, but there are a few scenes and enough hat-tips (Corona beers, saying grace at family meals, talk of owing 10-second cars) that show the creative team (including Diesel as producer) are sensibly ignoring the last two flicks.

Of course, what the majority of viewers will be looking for is a one-two combo of cars and action. And, as you’d expect, both are present and correct. Car-wise, boy-racers and automobile enthusiasts will be in heaven. And where the action is concerned, aside from an adrenalin-pumping street race which sees Brian and Dom vie for a driving position, the later chase scenes become a little repetitive (the same track is used twice) and undoubtedly over-the-top (jumping from one car to another? Sigh).

As for the leads, though they’ll probably never be labelled as Oscar-worthy, they share a nice chemistry and portray a believably broken friendship (when Brian screams apologies from the floor, you do feel it). Though neither has hit the heights predicted after the franchise-started (Diesel has yet to top scary sci-fi Pitch Black and Walker hasn’t bettered hard-hitting gangster yarn Running Scared) it’s nice to see them come back to their roots and hopefully better scripts will end up in their driveways. Elsewhere Brewster and Rodriguez are both good, despite being as sidelined as an F1 driver’s pitt crew.

Overall, it unravels at bit towards the end in an obvious attempt to set up a ‘the fast and the furious will return’ finale, Fast & Furious is finally a sequel to the first. Not as good as the original but better than the previous two, fans of the series will be putting their foot down to get this one.