The action is still fast. The film critic is still furious.
Installment No. 4 in the mystifyingly popular franchise, “Fast & Furious” brings more auto erotica meant to pass as a movie.
Adding an ampersand and leaving off the definite articles in the title doesn’t recondition a series that substitutes gratuitous images of spinning tires, property destruction, grimacing bruisers and scantily clad floozies for actual — uh, you know — screenwriting and acting. But who needs literary erudition or the Stanislavsky method when you’ve got endless sequences of illegally souped-up sports cars racing and then smashing into each other through city streets and over hill and dale?
Only the lowest of the lowest common denominator in the multiplex audience will be tweaked by the news that “F&F” reunites the cast of four from the original film, 2001’s “The Fast and the Furious.” Paul Walker then starred in the first sequel, 2003’s “2 Fast 2 Furious.” Only Vin Diesel had a small cameo in 2006’s “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.”
The director of that last chapter, Justin Lin, returns behind the camera and has bribed back both symbols of macho vapidity and fading career desperation. Playing the main dudes who exist on opposite sides of the law, Walker’s undercover blondie gearhead Brian O’Conner continues to have a platonic, masochistic boy crush on Diesel’s criminal bald gearhead Dom Toretto. Jordana Brewster reprises her thankless roles as Dom’s long-suffering sister. Michelle Rodriguez appears only briefly in “F&F” as a narrative device, playing Dom’s butch girlfriend Letty once more.
Vroom-vroom. Ka-ching ka-ching.
Obviously money and not a deep desire for artistic expression inspired the project. The story is irrelevant, an excuse for burning rubber as rivals Brian and Dom find themselves on the same side facing a common enemy. A Mexican drug smuggler with a supposedly mysterious identity — in a big “surprise” twist that’s easier to guess than Ms. Brewster’s size 0 dress size — becomes the object of their collective ire. Much gas guzzling ensues.
If only “F&F” weren’t so overproduced and had the courage of its exploitation flick convictions. But it even fails as pulp fiction. With only the most whitewashed, PG-13 levels of gore-free gunplay and clothed intimations of sex, the producers can suck in a larger audience of underage adrenaline seekers. Thus, even for cheap thrills, “Fast” is a drag.
Quick Info
‘Fast & Furious’
1 out of 5 Stars
Stars: Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez
Director: Justin Lin
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some sexual content, language and drug references
Running time: 105 minutes
