Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

What both these cats need to do is somehow get into this Braga’s organization, which is run by his second in command Mr. Campos (John Ortiz). This shouldn’t be too hard to do since these people run their drugs using street racers and who is better at street racing than Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Connor? Another fantastic race and crash scene takes place and now the die is set. Dom has determined that Campos right hand man Fenix (Laz Alonzo) was the trigger man in his girl’s death and is obsessed with killing him, and everybody for that matter, while Brian just wants to make the big collar. Eventually circumstance forces Dominic and Brian to put away past differences and work together, against impossible odds, to bring Campos to justice and avenge the death of the lovely Letty, who is sorely missed.

Understand right off the bat the ‘narrative’ in this movie, and I hesitate to even call it a narrative, makes the original ‘The Fast and the Furious’ seem like the second coming of King Lear. It is quite simply pure and utter nonsense. So Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Connor have to infiltrate this billion dollar hi-tech super secure drug ring. Ignoring the fact that one of them is a fairly high profile FBI agent who chases people through crowded city streets in suits brandishing a gun and an FBI badge, and the other is Dominic Toretto. In this particular universe Dominic Toretto is the first and last name of street tuning and street racing which would make him the King, and thus make Letty the Queen. Everybody, from cops to garage hands, knows this cat. You’ve just murdered his Queen and now the King wants to work for you. Guess what… YOU’RE HIRED! Sorry about your girl. No hard feelings right, you incredibly angry dude who all of the sudden wants to deliver heroin. There is so much stupidity in this movie that someone could probably write a book called ‘Stupid stuff about Fast and Furious’. It only got worse on the rare occasions our characters would talk to each other. When they were talking about cars or killing or that fake FBI talk it was all good, but when they stepped out of that comfort zone it was quite painful to listen to. There were times when you secretly wished they would just shut up and have another street race or something. The only person in the movie who has the ability to deliver bad dialog and make it sound halfway decent was killed off in the first twenty minutes.

If it sounds like I didn’t like this movie too much… not so fast my friends. Yes the story is lame, the dialog is weak and the acting is suspect but this film ain’t about none of that. It’s about car racing and car crashes and that part of the movie is simply spectacular. Never has a movie’s title been more descriptive in detailing what a movie is about because the action in this one is fast and furious and unrelenting. It’s car porn. It seems to me that director Justin Lin, aside from showing much love to the long neglected Asian acting community, observed in the editing room that the story he was working with was beyond lame and kept only the bare minimum of stuff that served the purpose of bridging the action sequences together. And my man can shoot a car race and chase and crash with the best of them.

I do want to let my dog Vin Diesel know that if he needs some 2XL shirts that have sleeves, I have a closet full that I’ll send to him on my own dime. This way he can throw away those tiny Mediums they make him wear in this movie. There was also this fight scene between Toretto and O’Connor, or more like Toretto punching O’Connor in the face over and over again with O’Connor’s head bouncing off a concrete floor. One would think that getting punched in the face close to twenty times by Vin Diesel, punches that sound like thunder, might leave a bruise. Paul Walker obviously had a stipulation in his contract that said ‘these blue eyes don’t bruise baby’. Outstanding!

So if you like watching cars go fast, if you like watching stuff blow up, if you like watching Vin Diesel wear tiny shirts, if you like Paul Walker’s bruise free blue eyes, If you like watching Jordana Brewster wear the same damn red polka dot dress through an entire movie, then I suggest you catch this one at a theater with the biggest screen and best sound possible because watching this nonsense on a little television set would probably make this the worst movie of all time. I just hope you weren’t looking forward to seeing much of Michelle Rodriguez. Because of this when ‘Faster and Furiouser’ comes out, I’ll be passing on that one.