The Fast and The Furious (2001)
Some franchises are born from humble beginnings, and no matter where those journeys end up taking them, the characters all start out somewhere simple. There are few series that that applies to more than the Fast & Furious franchise. The series has been everywhere by now, including SPACE, but it all started with a little movie about an undercover cop and the culture that would win him over.
I’ll admit to having been dismissive of the Fast movies in the past. Their outlandish feats of increasing daringness are certainly not meant to be “real cinema”, for sure. I believe I’ve said before that I myself used to be one of the snobbish people that I’ve come to dislike, so I didn’t always treat this series how it should have been treated - like dumb, fun movies about cool people doing cool things.
However, even back when I was stuck-up about it, I never would talk down on the original, The Fast And the Furious. Despite all of the things that would come, there’s something about this movie that made it turly great. Some might say those elements are stolen (the movie was famously pitched as “Point Break, but with cars”), but I disagree. While the overall premise is certainly similar, there’s a lot more going on here than a simple copy-paste job.
For one, while I’ve never been a member myself, the car culture presented here is unbelievable and real. So real, in fact, that most of the racers shown are real racers, with actors only placed in the speaking roles. Hell, a stunt coordinator once laughed at the fact that, when it came to the scene where all of the racers have to scatter because the cops showed up, they were out of there so fast that the he actually didn’t even see it happen. This real, respectful representation shows through in all of the facets that the movie has, from the shadier criminal elements, to the excitement, joy, and camaraderie that comes with being in that world. Even with the trash talk and the rivalry, Dom straight up says at one point that he’d never narc on anyone in the scene.
The plot is simple, in fairness: undercover cop Brian O’Conner (the late Paul Walker), known in the world as Brian Earl Spilner, is trying to figure out who in the racing world has been robbing semi-trucks full of electronics, and his investigation has led him to the Toretto family. Headed by Dominic (Vin Diesel) and his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), the Torettos make a living with a small grocery store and by being kings of the underground racing world. Their crew consists of Dom’s girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), resident “mad scientist” Jesse (Chad Lindberg), muscle-head Vince (Matt Schulze), and slick Leon (Johnny Strong).
The final race is something more than just wheels on asphalt, but a spiritual moment as well.
Brian tries to get close the crew so that he can figure out if they’re the ones boosting DVD players, and if not, see if they know who is. Along the way, however, he starts to fall for Mia and, perhaps even more so, the life of an underground racer. He doesn’t believe Dom is the one pulling these heists, but he’s positive that he’ll know who is, as he’s the de facto king of the scene. It’s a fairly classic tale, one that sees the rogues winning over the straight-and-narrow man, but here it’s colored by Californian culture and the sweltering heat of the blacktop.
Every turn of this movie is done with spirit, something that, even with my positive outlook, I’ll admit has died away as the series has progressed. The underlying theme of family starts here, though, and would remain the heart of the franchise to almost comical degrees. Here, however, there’s more than that. There’s a sense of indominable will against the harshness of reality. After all, Dom’s reason for doing any of this is a testament to the human spirit and its need for adrenaline. Very few of the characters from the purportedly criminal element shown here are even close to being bad people. Even the ones that are are shunned by those around them, such as the outright gang leader Johnny Tran, pack leader of some Vietnamese thugs who are much less above-board than the others.
The cars are equally beloved here, with racer lingo and specs being spouted without any concern on whether the viewer can follow it. Some don’t like that sort of thing, but to me, I find it less believable when characters dumb it down to their peers who definitely don’t need to be spoon-fed such things. After all, they should already know what these words and terms mean, so why would it be explained to them like they’re 5? This is even more reinforced with Brian, the closest we have to an audience surrogate, already being part of this culture, and thus, fluent in all things gearhead.
The emotional stakes of this film are also at their highest, though that’s not to say later movies wouldn’t have their own stakes. Here, though, the main characters are at odds nearly the entire film, yet one of them doesn’t even know it. There’s a tension from the very beginning between the façade that Brian has to maintain, the real love he feels for Mia, and the growing trust in him that Dom exhibits. The use of dramatic irony, when the audience knows something that the characters don’t, is masterful here, and it gives the entire film an edge of danger. What if Brian is found out? How will Dom, once convicted of assault, react to this? How will Mia feel?
In the end, while it spawned a much-maligned franchise that doesn’t really deserve the hate it gets, few could argue about the greatness of The Fast and the Furious. If you’ve avoided the series, perhaps due to the newer ones and their wild acts of daring, it’s still worth watching this one, as well as the two immediate sequels. These three hemorrhaged their main talent slowly but surely, but that didn’t stop the movies from being full of heart, culture, and just straight-up good fun, as these adrenaline junkies live life a quarter-mile at a time.
