The Fast and the Furious

I remember the first "The Fast and the Furious" mostly for Vin Diesels attitude - I thoroughly enjoyed it back then, and the racing was fun too. I honestly cannot recall much about two - and three was scarily bad with the exception of the driving. The two things that stick with me about the third installment is the first occassion when a guy drifts up a parking lot in a perfect arc, the second being a dialogue - "Why can't you be like other Americans in Japan, and fall for a nice,hot Japanese chick?"

I'm not a movie/theatre buff. The last time I stepped into a theatre to watch a movie was "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" way back in 2005. As part of my quest to do something different from work at any given opportunity, I jumped at the opportunity to watch the fourth installment of this movie when a colleague expressed his desire to do so as well. Adi, myself and a couple of colleagues (Arun Singh and Mustak) headed out on 14th April 2009 for the 19:30 hours show at the Inox multiplex in the Garuda Complex, Bangalore, Karnataka - 560025.

It's just been a couple of hours since the completion of the movie, but my recollection is already a little hazy - so much for this being a memorable movie. As Adi put it so succinctly, this movie knows what the audience wants and provides exactly that with absolutely no surprises. This movie is all about Vin Diesel - there's no two ways about that. The problem is that he's beginning to show his age, and that he's required to be sentimental in a few scenes here - an absolute waste of time. The supporting cast also have absolute howlers when they're trying to be serious - in 5 years, they seem to have forgotten to act as well.

The driving is just pure fun. No races in the traditional sense this time around - lots of scenes in traffic, in narrow tunnels, desert sand and so on and so forth - it isn't just sport this time, it's professional and personal. The first scene (pictured in the trailer), and a street racing scene are particularly good. The music is familiar to fans of games like the NFS series and does its job pretty well - pumps up the blood and lets the audience give a few hoots in between. There's also the now usual glorifying of the bad boys and cop bashing - there are so many cliches in this movie it can make your eye water.

Words really don't do much justice to this movie. In fact, the script and dialogues are so god awful they 're better left alone. The best way to summarize my experience is to say - I enjoyed it, had fun and never felt like either my time or my money were being burnt in front of my eyes. Watch it for the racing, and watch it once.

Here's the trailer from youtube: