fastandfurious

Billed by its promoters as "the surprise hit of the year", The Fast and The Furious blends a successful mix of well-cast acting talent and turbocharged testosterone to keep avid performance car nuts living out every gear change and twist of the tiller.

From the in-your-face freighter-jacking opener through tense stand-offs, scenes of passion, expressed loss and ultimate betrayal, the film plays out undercover detective Brian's (played by Paul Walker) ploy to befriend street racing car heisters and, after winning their trust, bust their crime racket.
Big rigs carrying electronic goods are being targeted and hijacked by gung-ho road pirates driving a trio of black, souped and dumped Honda Civics.

The FBI likes one Dominic Toretto (played by Vin Diesel) for the hits, a heavyset, mean-looking performance workshop owner with a NOS-enhanced red Series 6 VeilSide-kitted RX-7 and an entourage who pilot fully-kitted GT-Rs, 200SXs, Integras and the like.

Brian's way in is through babe Mia (Jordana Brewster) who staffs a sandwich shop Brian just happens to start liking. Mia is Dom's little sister. Showing up at their next illegal street drag racing meet, Brian says he can't make Dom's proposed US$2000 'entry fee' so, in a "balls-out" move, he instead wagers his car - a turbocharged and intercooled 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse with a freshly-installed 100hp 3-stage NOS system.
Four abreast, it's Brian pitted against Dom's Series 6, a Civic and an Integra along a roadblocked multi lane inner city straight which runs for several blocks. The lingo throughout these film sequences flows as thick and fast as the action itself. The Aussie MoTeC name even made it in, albeit as a "full MoTeC exhaust system" instead of Engine Management System (hey, imagine the tonnes of technical input!).

The cops arrive in droves post-race and it's everyone for themselves as the streeters scatter in every direction. Dom speeds up into a multi deck and is later on foot when patrolling officers recognise him and give chase. Brian conveniently spots him and snatches him from the dragnet and away to safety - the perfect in-road to gaining Dom's trust as none of Dom's crew were there to rescue him.

The two are later embroiled in a gangland turf disagreement courtesy of bad boy biker and drag racer, Johnny Tran (Rick Yune), who's still got a major beef with Dom 'cause Dom bedded his sister. Johnny and his clan lay down a challenge to Dom and his boys - front up at the Race Wars drag meet at an air base in the desert to see who's best.
To up the ante, they then shoot up what is now Dom's ride with automatic weapons and send its chassis skyward in a ball of NOS-fuelled fire.

Brian's now got to source Dom another 10-second car. Cue one Toyota Supra which blooms into the film's main racer.

His late-night peak into the other crews' respective workshops uncovers crates of DVD players in Tran's premises, prompting Brian to steer the dubious FBI in Tran's direction (the FBI are still adamant it's Dom & co doing the stealing). Tran's gear proves clean, and the FBI's hunch starts to look good.
The whole while Brian works at, and succeeds in, winning Mia's heart and trust - a trust he's got to decide whether to break when things get furnace hot. He's still a cop and the pressure to wrap-up the hijacking case intensifies. He must decide where his loyalties lie and what his limits truly are.

Film Director, Rob Cohen (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Daylight), really digs in and tells a story like it is. The US import car street racing scene offered a tale he just couldn't resist telling.

"It's primal. It's precise. It's a world unto itself with rituals, language, rites of passage, heroes, villains and intense, gear-grinding drama," he tells, having witnessed the scene's power and allure at several late-night races on the industrial outskirts of LA.
"It's a hobby and a lifestyle, dazzlingly multicultural and which has stretched from LA to the entire world via magazines, websites, slang and the innate human desire to test the limits."

The limits of adhesion are the ones explored during a high-RPM chase scene which sees Brian's Supra full-belt - and often airborne - in pursuit of Tran's bikers, along with the reeling Dom in his late father's sentimental, injected and blown 900-horsepower V8.
The two later line up for the penultimate duel: 8-cylinders of supercharged, rammed big block versus space-age, turboed and intercooled six on gas.
The result? Hey, you're gonna have to watch the film to find out!

Screens: in cinemas everywhere, out on video in USA. Available in New Zealand Feb 21/2002.