Stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Rick Yune, Matt Schulze, Thom Barry and Ted Levine Directed by Rob Cohen The one that started it all. Coming back to it after the craziness of the more frequent movies, this initial entry is surprisingly subdued in comparison. Director Rob Cohen was trying to create a visual aesthetic for the movie, evidenced by a bravura sequence in the first (opening) race where the camera goes down the gear, into the engine and out the exhaust. The race itself - a 10 second event stretched into a 2-minute sequence - created a sense of what it might be like to be in the race. Of course, that particular opening race relied heavily on CG effects to give it that particular visual flair. While CG may dominate the opening race, much of the action towards the end was more on the practical side, with the major stunt at the end done in a single take and eight cameras rolling. While the movie started out with the idea of peeking in on the car culture at the time, the plot itself was fairly typical. It’s no different from that of Point Break, the Keanu Reeves / Patrick Swayze thriller of ten years prior. Aside from the race at the beginning, the movie is very much an undercover cop thriller for most of the movie. The action gets back loaded into the third act with a race, a chase and rescue, another chase and a final race, all taking up the last twenty minutes or so. At least the movie took its time to build the characters, their relationships and motives, as well as getting the plot all worked out in order to have that somewhat controversial payoff. In all that, it did rely more on the performances of its fairly fresh (at the time) cast and it was easy to lump Paul Walker as a Keanu wannabe at the time, especially given the plot of the movie. Over the commentary tho, Cohen would often refer to Walker as the next Steve McQueen (a statement that Scott Waugh would make about his lead star Aaron Paul in the new Need For Speed movie). Although, it was Vin Diesel who established himself more with his role as anti-hero Dominic Toretto, so much so that he would join director Cohen on the next flick, XxX. What else that was unique to this movie was the role of women. Michelle Rodriguez had Girlfight under her belt at the time and was already establishing herself as a go-to actor for the tough girl role. Jordana Brewster was coming off TV work and college at the time, and this was only her third movie following The Faculty and The Invisible Circus. Both girls were barely damsels in distress, both capable of handling their vehicles and handling their men. In a sense, it was something different. Overall, the movie was a decent action flick. It wasn’t perfect, but there were rumblings of greatness from the cast. A sequel might have been inevitable, given the ending they had, but really, who would have guessed how far it would have gone at the time. Rating: ***1/2
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