The Fast and the Furious (2001) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? Did you all have a good weekend? I did. It was nice for a change, somewhat. Today I'm reviewing a movie that I didn't ever intend to review on this blog, in any of its incarnations over the last eight years. It's one I've never had any interest in and part of a franchise that I've never really had any interest in. But it was requested by a very good friend of mine, and I coincidentally ended up getting the entire franchise up to this point on DVD and Blu-ray from another friend of mine. So today I'll be reviewing The Fast and the Furious from 2001, starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster. There are going to be spoilers so I can talk about the end of the movie without worrying about having to not spoil anything about it. It's also an almost 22 year old movie at this point, so it's not like it's brand new or anything. Let's get into it.

The Fast and the Furious is a fascinating movie. Critics hated it but audiences loved it. This movie came out back in 2001, a time where superhero and comic book movies hadn't yet become popular. X-Men had just come out the year before, we wouldn't get Sam Raimi's Spider-Man for another year and we were still 11 years away from The Avengers (2012) grabbing everyone's attention and making superhero and comic book based movies and TV shows extremely popular. It was also months before both Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring would come out, starting those movie franchises. We even still had a year to wait before Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Trek Nemesis would come out. And it's an original idea too, inspired by, but not adapting, video games such as Grand Theft Auto and The Need for Speed, which ended up being adapted into a movie, Need for Speed, in 2014 oddly enough.

I remember when The Fast and the Furious was coming out. The advertisements for it were all over TV and even the radio if I remember correctly. And even though I was 14 going on 15 when the movie came out, I had no interest in watching it. Even after it was out on home video in 2002, I had no interest in the movie whatsoever. As most trailers do, the trailer for this movie focused on the races, the danger, and the shallow aspects of the movie, and as you know, I'm a character guy. I love diving into the motivations of characters and what makes them who they are. Which is exactly how you get to know people in real life. So when a trailer doesn't even hint at who the characters are, in a setting I don't care about, the movie isn't going to appeal to me. Though I do admit that when I saw the trailer for the 2019 spin-off, Hobbs & Shaw, in the theatres when I went to see Spider-Man: Far From Home, I thought it looked good, even though I hadn't seen the rest of the movies up to that point. So when I got the DVDs and Blu-rays from my friend and she showed me that all of the movies in this franchise were there, I jumped at the chance knowing I'd have more material for this blog.

What's crazy to me is that this movie's budget was $38 million, which is a very small budget even compared to other movies that came out the same year as The Fast and the Furious did. The crazy part is that the movie made $207.3 million at the worldwide box office with the domestic box office garnering $144.5 million. Against the $38 million budget, that's more than double the budget. Which I'm guessing that Universal was pleased with since they commissioned a sequel. Sort of. But, we'll get there, next week. 

The Fast and the Furious is about Brian O'Connor (played by Paul Walker), an LAPD cop who goes undercover with Dominic Toretto's crew to find out who's been hijacking DVD players from semi-trucks. Toretto, played by Vin Diesel, is a criminal and a man not to be crossed with. While on the job, Brian falls in love with Toretto's sister, Mia, played by Jordana Brewster and begins to wonder if everything is as cut and dry with Toretto's crew as his bosses have made it out to be.

As I said earlier, I'm a character guy, and this movie has some of the most interesting characters in any movie. Toretto is interesting and Vin Diesel, who I'm not a huge fan of but have liked him as Groot in the MCU, plays him pretty well, but my favourite characters are Brian and Mia. Brian is a cop but he's getting crap from his bosses for not wrapping up the case quickly and for being wrong about Johnny Tran, played by Rick Yune, who was in the 2002 James Bond film, Die Another Day, being the one hijacking the trucks. Between that and falling in love with Mia, Brian isn't so sure that what he's doing is right. Except it's much more complicated than that simply because Brian spends alot of time with Toretto and his crew. There's a scene fairly early on in the movie where Toretto and his crew, including his girlfriend, Letty, played by Michelle Rodriguez, and Brian, get together at Dom and Mia's house for a barbecue and movie night. It's a quiet moment and it's the kind of moment that I love in movies like this, because it helps to center the movie and gives me a touchstone when all the insane parts, that wouldn't necessarily happen in real life, start happening. This is where you kind of start to see Brian doubt what he's doing there, because he sees these supposed criminals as people, who are a family and would do anything for each other. And yet, that's not what this movie is about. The theme is family, but the movie is not about family. It's about Brian and his undercover assignment and him being seduced by the dark side so to speak. 

Because of this scene it's not surprising that Brian lets Dominic escape at the end of the movie. At the same time though, there was no guarantee that that was where the movie was heading for. Even up until the very last minute, Brian fully intended to arrest Toretto even if the rest of his crew had disappeared, with Mia being the only one still at the house as Brian's arrival and Tran killing Jesse interrupted their departure. And it was Tran killing Jesse that turned Brian onto Dominic's side as he helps him deal with Tran and his henchman. Even after Toretto wrecked his car getting hit by a semi-truck, Brian was done and let him take his own car, the one he'd owed Dominic the whole movie. 

But besides the characters, I think what drew me into this movie is that even though I've never seen it until last night, I was nostalgic for the time period it came out in and was set in. I was 14 going on 15 when this movie came out and I remember 2001. I started high school that year, and had two operations that started me on the path to being able to walk again and eventually to eat actual food instead of just a formula through a feeding tube. I watched shows like The O.C., Degrassi: The Next Generation, and One Tree Hill, where the style of clothes are exactly how they are in this movie. Especially on The O.C. since both that show and this movie are set in southern California and so the clothing would be slightly different than it would be elsewhere in the United States and Canada. And while I'm not fond of the style of music used in this movie, seeing early 2000s computers and cell phones was wild. Especially since my family still had the larger brick style cell phone in 2001.

Do I think this movie is the best movie ever? No, absolutely not. Did I enjoy watching it and would I watch it again? Definitely. It was fun to put on a mindless action movie, that didn't have a lot of action in it, for a couple of hours before bed. Especially one where I didn't know what the outcome would actually be, unlike the recent slew of comic book movies which have become almost predictable because they follow that same formula, even if they're ones that try not to follow that formula. Which isn't a bad thing at all, it's just refreshing to watch a movie where you don't really know who the good guys and bad guys are, and whether the good guys or the bad guys will win in the end. 

And that my friends is it for me for today. I will be back next week for my review of the next movie in the Fast and Furious series, 2 Fast 2 Furious, which came out in 2003. I also have other posts coming out this week too. So stay tuned for those. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.