The Slow and the Tedious

by Ed Owens

I'm not into cars. I know that somehow, and in some circles, that makes me less of a man, but so be it. I just can't seem to get worked up over muscle cars the way many guys do. Frankly, in the midst of a mid-life crisis a la Lester Burnham, the last thing I ould spend money on is a 1970 Pontiac Firebird (though, in my defense, I would more likely buy a kick-ass home entertainment system, a fact which should earn back some of my lost masculinity points). I don't change my own oil, I don't tinker under the hood, and I don't drool over magazines featuring souped-up cars with popped hoods.

A good car chase, however, is a Chevy of a different color. A good car chase is like an exquisitely choreographed ballet on wheels (a comparison which will further lessen my masculinity rating for some). Whether it's Mad Max protecting a tanker or "Popeye" Doyle racing the El, few movie thrills can compare to the rush of fast-moving cars. There are great car chases in bad films (To Live and Die in LA), great car chases in average films (Ronin), and car chases that are films (The Chase, Speed). A good car chase, in those rarest of cases, can actually elevate a film beyond its inherent mediocrity and firmly cement its place in our cinematic consciousness based almost entirely on the merits of the chase alone (Bullitt). The bottom line is that I love a good car chase.

Don't blame the DP. They're blurred cause...THEY'RE FAST!!!!!

The Fast and the Furious is not a good car chase, nor does it even so much as feature one. What it does have are lots of fast cars that spend most of their time pulling into driveways or parked on the side of the street, two things that fall well outside of even my liberal definition of "fast" or "furious." The title can't really be applied to the film's characters either, given that most of them are either slow-witted or only mildly upset, both of which once again fall well outside my liberal definitions.

Vin Diesel plays Dominic Toretto, a godfather wannabe of the street racing circuit. For the first half of the film, he spends most of his time bestowing blessings and favors on his "family," an oddball assortment of speed freaks and wrench monkeys who literally hang on his every word. When he speaks, he speaks in platitudes, such as, "Whether you win by an inch or win by a mile, all that matters is that you win." Paul Walker is Brian Spindler, a racing amateur looking to become a made man in Toretto's organization. As one can surmise from the trailers, Spindler has his own reasons for wanting in, though such complexities are obviously not the film's focus.

Furious or confused? You be the judge....

The film's focus is on the car races/chases, which, unfortunately, are too far and few between. As if that's not bad enough, none of the film's chase scenes manage any sort of sustained tension. This makes for excruciating movie-going, wading through 25 minutes of badly written filler to get to the film's next minute-long chase scene. In much the same way that a central character hits the nitrous too early in a pivotal race, director Rob Cohen uses his best tricks too early in the film. The first street race features the only attempts at any sort of stylish innovation, treating us to a creative particle-size trip through the various stages of the engine and out through the exhaust as Dominic hits the gas on his machine. Once used, though, the style is discarded, and the remaining chase scenes are blandly rendered with traditional angles and cuts which inspire about as much excitement as a trip to the DMV.

The true travesty in all of this is that some decent actors are left choking on the dust. Vin Diesel, who stole scenes in Boiler Room and virtually owned Pitch Black, struggles to look menacing while delivering lines like, "I live my life one quarter mile at a time." Girlfight's Michelle Rodriguez is reduced to supporting status as one of Toretto's gear heads. The Young and the Restless alum Walker's best scenes are behind the wheel, something which thankfully doesn't require the delivery of much dialogue. The rest of the cast talks shop in between looking concerned or angry.

"I live my life one quarter mile at a time," says Toretto as he waxes philosophically. "For that ten seconds, I'm free." Too bad the movie wasn't.

©2001 Ed Owens
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