Import racing and import customizing is huge across the nation. After-market and speed shop auto parts make car-related companies big bucks It was only a matter of time until a movie was made about the racing culture. “The Fast and the Furious” does a decent job of showing off that world. The action is great. The storyline is lame.

The film stars Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. Walker plays a new-to-the-racing-scene racer who’s actually an undercover cop, trying to find out who in the import scene is hijacking trucks of Panasonic consumer electronics. Diesel plays the leader of a gang of racers.

The whole premise is pretty weak. A group of thieves are using souped-up Honda Civics to roll up on tractor trailers hauling consumer electronics. One of the Civics pulls in front of the semi and the passenger in the car jumps onto the truck, using a hook and rope, taking the driver out and hijacking the whole truck.

Walker comes in as an undercover cop who gets caught up in the scene and adrenaline rush associated with the racing and is torn between loyalty to Diesel and his job as a cop.

The biggest hole in the movie though is this loyalty. Walker quickly becomes buddy-buddy with Diesel and most of his group and the bonds just do not seem to make a lot of sense. The same can be said for the relationship that blossoms between Mia (Jordana Brewster) and Walker’s character. The bonds are there, it just seems like they were fused way too quickly. Maybe some of that character development ended up on the cutting room floor to make way for more racing — fair enough.

The cars are great and the racing scenes are amazing, with great attention to detail, and that is obviously why viewers are going to see this film. I am making the assumption that you go to see this movie, taking it for exactly what it is — a showcase for presenting high-horsepower cars.

Being a big fan of Toyota, I was happy to see Walker’s car in half the movie was a Supra Twin Turbo, but for the most part, the movie was about Mitsubishis, which I found a little strange. I’m not vastly into the import scene, but I always thought that the Mitsubishis, while customization was available, I thought it was mainly Honda that was the brand to go with. The movie seemed to have an overabundance of Eclipses though.

Regardless, the movie’s racing is great. The sounds and slick filming of the movie make it a worthy watcher. Just don’t go in expecting too much of a story.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 29th, 2006 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Film, Movie Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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