The Fast and the Furious Review

Strip the mythology away and this is Point Break with import tuners, which is exactly what it was pitched as and exactly what it delivers. Cohen shoots Los Angeles at night in sodium orange and blue, and the racing photography holds up better than the plot around it, all whip pans and undercar rigs and a nitrous gag that pretends the camera is being sucked through an engine block. The undercover cop story is thin to the point of transparency, the hijacking scheme never makes financial sense, and Paul Walker spends the first half acting with his eyebrows.

What works is Vin Diesel, who plays Dominic as a man who has already decided what he believes and simply waits for everyone else to catch up, and the barbecue scenes, which quietly establish that this series is about a table rather than a car. Michelle Rodriguez is given nothing and lands anyway. It is a competent B picture with one real idea about loyalty, and the reason it grew into a decade-spanning franchise is that the idea, not the driving, is what people remembered.