Love among the ruins (7/13/01)
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The Fast And The Furious. [Rob Cohen, 2001.]
Paul Walker as Keanu Reeves goes undercover among gangs of Los Angeles street racers as surfers led by Vin Diesel as Patrick Swayze in an attempt to discover whether they’re responsible for a series of truck hijackings as a series of bank robberies being investigated by some unholy alliance of the cops, the FBI, and jackbooted thugs in assault gear as the FBI simpliciter; going rather too enthusiastically native, he falls in love with Jordana Brewster as Lori Petty and, of course, with screaming engines, smoking clutches, burning rubber, and motion blur:
Point Break with turbochargers.
The false bust is abbreviated, the Gary Busey mentor-character didn’t make the cut, and Swayze’s many speeches about the Cosmic Significance of surfing don’t seem to have been translated, Diesel confining himself to a few remarks about preferring to handle his life a quarter-mile at a time; maybe that should provoke some cutting remarks about this being the abridged version for younger readers, but, let’s face it, James Cameron is on no one’s short list of the great Twentieth Century philosophers, and the racing scenes are really, really great.
Not the Great American Dragracing Movie [that distinction still belongs to the technically more primitive but philosophically more satisfying
Two-Lane Blacktop], but as good as any other. Tell the authors to pump that nitrous and keep that sequel coming.
____________Deuce in the hole (7/13/01)
