The Fast and the Furious (2001 movie)
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The Fast and the Furious is a 2001 action film starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, and directed by Rob Cohen.
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Plot
Dominic Toretto (Diesel) is the leader of a street racing gang that is under suspicion of hijacking trucks for their cargo of expensive electronic equipment. Undercover cop Brian O'Conner (Walker) attempts to find out who exactly is stealing the equipment by infiltrating the local racing community with the help of a local auto parts dealer, while falling for Dominic's younger sister Mia (Jordana Brewster).
After O'Conner loses his car to Toretto in a race by racing for "pink slips", a 1950s slang term for the registration documents for a car in the United States, and then loses it again when they are confronted by Toretto's rival Johnny Tran (Rick Yune), O'Conner tries to gain the trust of Toretto by working on repairing and upgrading a Toyota Supra to hand over to him. While doing this, O'Conner is constantly pressured by his superiors in the LAPD and the FBI to bring the investigation to a satisfactory close, leading him to face a stark choice between the community he has embedded himself into and the woman he has become close to or discarding his cover and discovering who from the street gangs are carrying out the hijackings.
The plot is extremely similar to that of the 1991 film Point Break. Both films feature an undercover cop infiltrating a gang of extreme sports junkies in order to gain information about a series of heists, in both films the protagonist falls for the sister of the gang's leader and both films end in the protagonist choosing to take up the life of those he was tasked to spy upon.
The races are undoubtedly the setpieces of the movie and unfortunately are—by necessity— somewhat formulaic; they are mostly won by one of the racers firing nitrous oxide into the intake manifold at the last moment. The nitrous oxide systems, or NOS, play a big part in the movie, with O'Conner seeing it as vital that his car have more complex and powerful nitrous systems in an attempt to match or beat Toretto. NOS in the movie equally refers to Pennsylvania auto parts manufacturer Holley Motor Company and their NOS™ range of nitrous products.
The film was commercially successful and was, for an action film, reasonably well-received by critics as an enjoyable romp featuring some well-shot action scenes.
The Fast and the Furious is also the movie that is credited with sparking America's youth in souping up and tricking out Japanese imports when originally this was only popular with the actual hardcore street racers who inspired the movie. For this it has recieved a cult following.
Trivia
- Based upon an article from Vibe by journalist Ken Li—Racer X—about the import street racing scene, where mainly Japanese road-going sports cars are "modded", upgraded and tuned beyond belief, and then raced at night on the public streets.
- Various modded and upgraded cars feature in the movie, including the following: Dodge Charger, Ford F-150 SVT Lightning, Honda Civic Veilside / Coupe, Honda S2000, Mazda RX-7, Mitsubishi Eclipse, Nissan Skyline R33 GT-R, Nissan 200SX, Toyota Supra, Volkswagen Jetta, and Acura Integra
- The Ferrari O'Conner drags against in his Supra is a Ferrari F355 GT F1 Spyder.
- The producers went through three titles— Racer X, Redline and Street Wars— before settling upon The Fast and the Furious. To use this, they bought the rights for the title—but not the plot— to a 1954 movie of the same name.
Sequel
A sequel—2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) found Walker reprising his role as Brian O'Conner, but Diesel, who had attained star status since the making of the first movie, did not return for the second film. This was reportedly due to Diesel's salary demands.
See Also
External links
- Official Website (http://www.thefastandthefuriousdvd.com/main.html)
- Holley NOS (http://www.holley.com/nosnitrous/)