| The Fast and the Furious | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Rob Cohen |
| Produced by | Neal H. Moritz |
| Written by | Ken Li (magazine article "Racer X") Gary Scott Thompson Erik Bergquist David Ayer |
| Starring | Paul Walker Vin Diesel Michelle Rodriguez Jordana Brewster Matt Schulze Thom Barry |
| Music by | BT |
| Cinematography | Ericson Core |
| Editing by | Peter Honess |
| Studio | Original Film Mediastream Film |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | June 18, 2001 |
| Running time | 107 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $38 million[1] |
| Box office | $207,283,925[1] |
The Fast and the Furious is a 2001 American street racing action film starring Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster. Directed by Rob Cohen, The Fast and the Furious was the first mainstream film to feature the Asian automotive import scene in North America. It is the first film in The Fast and the Furious film series. The film's concept was inspired by a Vibe magazine article about street racing in New York City, and its plot is loosely based on No Man's Land, and Point Break. It bears no relation to the earlier racing film of the same name. The Fast and the Furious film series was followed by 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) (chronologically the last), Fast & Furious (2009) and Fast Five (2011).
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Three modified 1995 Honda Civics follow a semi-trailer truck, and they manage to hijack the truck, stealing over $6 million in merchandise. LAPD officer Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) is sent undercover on a joint LAPD-FBI investigation to apprehend the gang. Brian uses his cover job at The Racer's Edge, an aftermarket parts shop, to make connections and infiltrate the local street racing scene. He enters his modified 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse RS 420A into an illegal race with Dominic, Edwin Ja Rule and Danny (Rj De Vera) bartering the pink slips, but loses to Dominic's modified 1993 Mazda RX-7. Brian gains Dominic's respect, however, when he arrives in time to prevent Dominic from being caught by police responding to the race. As they flee from the scene, Dominic and Brian accidentally venture into southern California's "Little Saigon", encountering Dominic's rival, Johnny Tran (Rick Yune) along with his cousin Lance Nyugen (Reggie Lee) and his gang, who open fire with submachine guns, rupturing a nitrous tank and destroying the Eclipse in the resulting explosion. They take a cab and leave at Dom's house. Dom calls him in for a beer at the party. Vince, jealous at him because Brian is dating with Mia, who he likes, tries to encouter him, but Mia stops him.
The next day, Brian delivers a totaled 1994 Toyota Supra to Dominic's shop and offers his talents as a driver to repay the debt incurred from losing the race. Brian begins dating Dominic's sister Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) and Jesse goes to work restoring the Supra. The investigation eventually leads Brian to suspect Tran and his gang of performing the hijackings and he reports the findings to his superior, sergeant Tanner (Ted Levine) and FBI special agent Bilkins (Thom Barry. The SWAT team, along with Brian, raid's Tran's garage, arrest him and his cousin Lance, but when is proved that there is no hijackings and that they are innocent, Bilkins and Tanner return to their original theory that Dominic and his crew are the perpetrators. Tanner warns Brian not to let his feelings for Mia or his friendship with Dominic cloud his judgment and lead him too far from the case, and Bilkins, angered about this, gives Brian thirty-six hours to break the case, or he will be sacked from the job and lose his entire carrer.
With the Supra now fully prepped to race, Brian presses Dominic for information regarding his income, citing the shop alone wouldn't pay for all his racing expenditures. Dominic gives Brian an invitation to "Race Wars", a massive street racing event held in the desert, and informs him they'll talk once Brian has proven his worth on the strip. Jesse, wanting to impress his dad in jail an Dom, bet's his modified 1995 Volkswagen Jetta and Tran bet's his modified 2000 Honda S2000. Jesse loses, panics and hastily flees the track, prompting Tran to confront Dominic and demand that he retrieve the car for him. Dominic refuses and Tran yells at him that somebody knocked him off and SWAT entered his house, acusing him (ubnekwost to him that Brian was the person who tipped him off to the cops and was right there in front of him) and getting him provoked into a fight in which he brutally beats Tran and is pulled off by Vince and two race wars security. That night, Dominic and his crew leave Race Wars.
Brian realizes that Dominic is the hijacker and confesses to Mia his status as an undercover cop. She angers at Brian and leaves him, but he says to her that everything that he said to her about their relationship is true and convinces her to come with him to save her brother and his friends from the armed truck drivers. He tracks their location by triangulating his cell phone signal over the central and they arrive at the hijacking in-progress to find Letty, badly injured at the car accident, and Vince, critically wounded, having been shot by the truck driver, and Dominic trying to save him, but Vince is tied up over the truck and Dominic's Civic breaks engine (due to multiple gunshots over the hood). Brian and Mia work together to rescue Vince, and they get him on the field. Just then, Dominic arrives with Leon and Letty. Brian, realizing that Vince will die and that he has no other choice, makes the difficult decision to blow his cover to the crew by phoning in for a medivac and saying that he is a police officer and that Vince needs medical help. The revelation enrages Dominic, but he contains himself and flees with Leon, Leticia and Mia as the medivac arrives for Vince.
Brian follows Dominic to his house and holds him at gunpoint to prevent him from fleeing, but he angers and yells that he is going to look for Jesse before Tran finds him. Just when Dom points his shotgun to him, Jesse arrives, apologizing for his actions at Race Wars and pleading for help with Tran. Moments later, Tran and Lance arrive on their bikes and perform a drive-by shooting and kill Jesse. Brian and Dominic chase them, with the latter driving his late father's modified 1970 Dodge Charger. He forces Lance's motorcycle off the road, severely injuring him, while Brian, after a short chase, manages to shoot and kill Tran. Afterwards, Brian and Dominic engage in a drag race, narrowly avoiding a passing train. Dominic smiles, but he crashes into a semi-truck and rolls his car twice, rendering the Charger undrivable. Brian pulls out Dom, with Dom assuming that he will arrest him now, but instead of arresting him, Brian hands over the keys to the Supra and lets him escape, making good on his promise to deliver a "ten second car". Dom leaves, and we see Brian walking past the camera.
Some time later, Dominic is seen driving through Baja California, Mexico, in a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS, with a words "I live my life a quarter-mile. For those 10 seconds or less, i'm free", disappearing in the sunset.
Director Rob Cohen makes a cameo appearance on the first race scene as a pizza delivery man.
The title rights, not the story rights, to the film The Fast and the Furious (1955), were purchased so that the title could be used on this project, another film about racing. The original film was shown in a theater owned by the grandfather of producer Neal H. Moritz.[2]
According to an interview found on the original DVD release, Cohen was inspired to make this film after reading a Vibe magazine article about street racing in New York City and watching an actual illegal street race at night in Los Angeles.
The film was shot in various locations within Los Angeles and parts of Southern California. Key locations included Dodger Stadium (on the opening scene where Brian tests his Eclipse on the parking lot), Angelino Heights, Silver Lake and Echo Park (the neighborhoods around Toretto's home), as well as Little Saigon (where Tran destroys the Eclipse) and the San Bernardino International Airport (the venue for Race Wars, which attracted over 1,500 import car owners and enthusiasts).[3]. The entire last rig heist scene was filmed along Domenigoni Parkway on the South side of San Jacinto/Hemet in the San Jacinto Valley in California near Diamond Valley Lake.
Prior to filming, both Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez did not have driver's licenses, so they took driving lessons during production.
In one scene at Toretto's home, the gang is seen watching Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, another film directed by Cohen.
For the climactic race scene between Brian and Toretto, separate shots of both cars crossing the railroad and the train crossing the street were filmed, then composited together to give the illusion of the train narrowly missing the cars. A long steel rod was used as a ramp for Toretto's car to crash through the semi-truck and fly in mid-air.
The film's score was composed by music producer BT, mixing Electronica with Hip-hop and Industrial influences. Two soundtracks were released for the movie. The first one features mostly hip-hop and rap music. The second one, titled More Fast and Furious: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture The Fast and the Furious, features alternative metal, Post-grunge and Nu metal songs, as well as select tracks from BT's score.
The Fast and the Furious was released on DVD on January 2, 2002. A second print known as the "Tricked Out Edition", released on June 3, 2003, featured Turbo-Charged Prelude, a short film that set the tone to the film's sequel. The scene is also on the DVD of that sequel.
The film was released on HD DVD along with 2 Fast 2 Furious on September 26, 2006 along with The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift on DVD and on Blu-ray disc on July 28, 2009 along with Fast & Furious on DVD and Blu-Ray.
The Fast and the Furious was met with mixed reviews, with a score of 54% based on 142 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes[4] (64% among 33 top critics)[5] Todd McCarthy of Variety called the film "a gritty and gratifying cheap thrill, Rob Cohen's high-octane hot-car meller is a true rarity these days, a really good exploitationer, the sort of thing that would rule at drive-ins if they still existed."[6] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it "an action picture that's surprising in the complexity of its key characters and portents of tragedy."[7] Susan Wloszczyna of USA Today gave the film 21⁄2 out of 4 stars, saying that Cohen "at least knows how to keep matters moving and the action sequences exciting."[8]
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a C, saying it "works hard to be exciting, but the movie scarcely lives up to its title."[9] Rita Kempley of The Washington Post gave the film a scathing review, calling it "Rebel Without a Cause without a cause. The Young and the Restless with gas fumes. The Quick and the Dead with skid marks."[10] Paul Clinton of CNN wrote that Cohen "created a high-octane, rubber-burning extravaganza" but he criticized the film for "plot holes you could drive the proverbial truck through" and an idiotic ending.[11]
The film series has spawned a couple racing video games for arcade, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable.
The Fast and the Furious (Wild Speed in Japan) arcade video game was released by Raw Thrills in 2004.[12] In 2006, The Fast and The Furious (ファスト・アンド・フュリアス) was released for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable.
Racing Champions released diecast metal replicas of the film's cars in different scales from 1/18 to 1/64.[13] RadioShack sold ZipZaps micro RC versions of the cars in 2002.[14] 1/24 scale plastic model kits of the hero cars were manufactured by AMT Ertl.[15]
The film has spawned four sequels: 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), Fast & Furious (2009), and Fast Five (2011) with a sixth instalment in the works. Paul Walker returned for "2 Fast 2 Furious", teaming up with Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris. Diesel was never approached to reprise his role in this film. Lucas Black starred in "Tokyo Drift", his only appearance in the series. Diesel had a small cameo at the end of the film, and Walker never appeared. "Fast & Furious" was the first true spiritual sequel to the original - Diesel, Walker, Rodriguez and Brewster all returned to reprise their roles. "Fast Five" also featured Diesel, Walker and Brewster, as well as Gibson and Ludacris, who both reprised their "2 Fast 2 Furious" roles in the film, along with the new addition of Dwayne Johnson. Eva Mendes and Matt Schulze also returned to the franchise, reprising their roles from "2 Fast 2 Furious" and the original film, respectively. Rodriguez also made a cameo in a post-credits scene in "Fast Five". Diesel, Walker, Brewster, Gibson, Ludacris and Rodriguez are all confirmed to return for the 6th film.
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