The Fast and the Furious arrived in June 2001 with a tagline that promised the world: “If you have what it takes, you can have it all.” Rob Cohen’s film, written by Gary Scott Thompson, Erik Bergquist and David Ayer, runs 106 minutes and stars Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. It is an action, crime and thriller picture, an international co-production between the United States and Germany, and the first installment in what became the Fast & Furious franchise. It is also, on its own terms, a thin and often clumsy piece of work that spends its best ideas on a single stretch of road and then runs out of them.
Trailer, via The Fast Saga.
Brian O’Conner and the Hijackings
The plot sets up two machines and never quite decides which one it cares about. At the Los Angeles port, a crew driving three heavily modified Honda Civics hijacks a semi-truck trailer carrying electronic goods and escapes along the Terminal Island Freeway. LAPD officer Brian O’Conner, played by Walker, goes undercover as part of a joint LAPD-FBI task force to find the crew responsible.
That is the crime half. The other half is a street-racing scene, and the film’s attention drifts toward it almost immediately.
Brian investigates Toretto’s Market & Cafe, managed by Mia Toretto, sister of street racer Dominic “Dom” Toretto. Diesel plays Dom as a man who says little and means all of it. When the crew arrives — Vince, Leon, Jesse and Dom’s girlfriend Letty — Vince grows suspicious of Brian and picks a fight. Dom threatens to fire Brian from his undercover job at Harry’s garage and ban him from the market. Harry talks him down and Brian keeps the job.
A Race Won by a Broken Car
Brian brings a modified 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse RS to a car meet, hoping to find a lead on the hijackers. Dom pulls up in a Mazda RX-7 and starts a race. Brian has no credibility, so he wagers his car. He, Dom and two other drivers run.
Brian’s car fails. Dom wins. Then the LAPD arrives and Dom has to run, and Brian helps him get away — which is the moment the film’s real subject announces itself.
The escape carries them into territory held by a rival gang led by Johnny Tran and his cousin Lance. Tran and Lance destroy the Eclipse. Brian and Dom take a cab home. Dom reminds Brian he still owes him a ten-second car. Brian delivers a decrepit MK4 Toyota Supra to Dom’s garage and the crew starts restoring it. He also starts dating Mia and looks into Tran’s finances.
The Cast Around Walker and Diesel
The film’s supporting roster is large and mostly decorative. Michelle Rodriguez plays Letty Ortiz, Dom’s girlfriend and a member of the crew. Jordana Brewster plays Mia, who owns the Toretto general store and becomes Brian’s love interest. Rick Yune plays Johnny Tran, the Vietnamese gang leader and Dom’s rival.
Chad Lindberg plays Jesse, a member of the crew who is highly intelligent with math, algebra and computing but dropped out of school because of his attention deficit disorder. Johnny Strong plays Leon. Matt Schulze plays Vince, Dom’s childhood friend. Ted Levine and Thom Barry play Tanner and Bilkins, the men who organized the investigation that put Brian undercover.
Noel Gugliemi appears as Hector, the organizer of the drag race. Ja Rule and car tuner R.J. de Vera play Edwin and Danny, fellow drivers at the race. Vyto Ruginis plays Harry, an informant and owner of The Racer’s Edge. Reggie Lee plays Lance Nguyen, Tran’s cousin and right-hand man. Neal H. Moritz and Rob Cohen both take cameos: Moritz as an unnamed driver of a black Ferrari F355 convertible who gets a challenge from Brian, Cohen as a Pizza Hut delivery man.
What the Two Leads Actually Do
Walker’s job is to be likable while lying, and he manages the likable part. Diesel’s job is to be still, and he is very good at it. The friendship between Brian and Dom is the film’s only engine that runs clean, and it runs because Diesel underplays every scene he is in.
The problem is that the movie keeps handing these two men material that does not deserve them. The undercover plot resolves through paperwork and a garage search, not through anything Brian does as a cop. The romance with Mia is asserted rather than built. The rival gang exists to smash a car and then wait.
The Supra, the Eclipse and the RX-7
The cars are the clearest argument the film makes for itself. Each one carries a character’s standing, and the film is honest about the exchange rate.
| Car | Driver | What it does | What it costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Honda Civics (three, heavily modified) | The hijack crew | Semi-truck trailer heist at the LA port | Sets the task force in motion |
| 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse RS | Brian O’Conner | Raced at the car meet, malfunctions | Wrecked by Tran and Lance |
| Mazda RX-7 | Dominic Toretto | Wins the race, flees the LAPD | Dom owes nothing, Brian owes a car |
| MK4 Toyota Supra (decrepit) | Brian, then the crew | Delivered to Dom’s garage, restored | Settles Brian’s ten-second debt |
The table is the movie. A car is a debt, a debt is a bond, and a bond is the only thing in this world that outlasts a race. It is a good idea. The Fast and the Furious states it and then moves on.
Where the Film Came From
The film entered development in late 1998. Its concept came from Ken Li’s 1998 Vibe magazine article “Racer X,” about the illegal street racing scene in New York City at the time. Thompson and Bergquist wrote the original screenplay that year, and Ayer was hired soon after.
Various actors were considered for O’Conner and Toretto. Walker was cast in 1998 and Diesel in early 1999, and the pair attended actual street races to prepare. Principal photography began in July 2000 and finished that October, mostly in Los Angeles and the surrounding area in Southern California. Record producer BT was hired to compose the score.
The film premiered at the Mann Village Theatre in Los Angeles on June 18, 2001. It carries a tagline that promises everything and a runtime of 106 minutes that delivers a heist, a race, a wreck and a rebuild.
A Franchise Built on One Good Scene
Here is the judgment. The Fast and the Furious is not a good movie, and the published critical score of 5.8 out of 10 is about right. Its crime plot is inert. Its romance is thin. Its villain, Johnny Tran, is a threat with no interior. The dialogue does the work of explaining relationships that the direction never bothers to show.
What the film does have is a single sustained idea — that a crew is a family and a car is a promise — and it has Diesel, who understands that idea better than anyone else involved. The ten-second car debt is the best writing in the picture. It is a number that means loyalty, and the film never has to say so.
The rest is noise. The hijacking subplot, the FBI task force, the LAPD pressure, the Tran rivalry: none of it lands with weight, and none of it is what anyone remembers. The movie’s legacy rests on the friendship and the garage, not on the case file.
That is worth saying plainly, because the franchise that followed took the one thing this film got right and built an empire on it. The Fast and the Furious is a rough first draft of a better series. It is worth watching once, for Diesel and for the Supra, and for the moment Brian chooses the gang over the LAPD — the only choice in the film that costs him anything.
5.8 of 10.
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