Movie Review: Fast & Furious 4

*Ye be warned, ther' be spoilers ahead.

As I was writing the first draft of this post, I could hear the roaring engines of souped-up, modified and sports cars as they zoomed pass on the nearby highway, and I realized.....there was an increase of speeding cars and screeching tires ever since the opening of the speed-o-rama Fast & Furious. It was past midnight and I had already heard four rounds of engines being pushed to the limit. Then again, it could be the after-effect of the F1 race we just had at Sepang. :?

Anyway, back to the movie at hand.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="194" caption="Fast & Furious"][/caption]

The scene is set 5 years after The Fast & The Furious where we last saw Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) 'escaping' from undercover agent, Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) and just before the start of The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift. Well, the duo are back in this latest installment rejoined by fellow actresses, Michelle Rodriquez (resuming the role of Dom's lover, Letty) and Jordana Brewster (resuming the part of Mia Toretto, Dom's sister).

I remember watching the first 5 minutes of the film, transfixed in my chair, as the opening scene pumped up my adrenaline with a high-speed chase and theft of a valuable commodity to all speedsters everywhere; a liquid gold called petrol. Trying to visually track the cars in the following hour-and-a-half scenes of mind-boggling and highly impossible car chases and races as they zoomed throughout the cinema screen proved too much for my eyes. Instead I ended up contenting myself with glimpses of flashing lights and shiny metal bodies followed, of course, by the cursing honks of innocent drivers.

However, I have to say that unlike Tokyo Drift, whereby I can relate tons of scenes at the drop of a hat from my first viewing, I have to think extra hard to remember Fast & Furious. At this moment, the foremost scene at the top of my head is at the beginning when the truck driver jumped out from his soon-to-be-doomed petrol carrier but not before saving his pet lizard. :| Of course, the car chases are always the best parts but other than that? It seems that the filmmakers just wanted to stretch whatever they could out of the first 3 movies, such as patching the plot hole of how Han (played by Sung Kang in Tokyo Drift) met up with Dom and simply continuing the story of what Dom was up to after he 'escaped'.

Although the film wasn't the best of the four, you have to give credit to the filmmakers for their ingenuity in adding new flavour to the races; by way of GPS. Yep, you guessed it, instead of using it to find your way when you're lost, Fast & Furious used it to outline the race course, through the busy city streets and facing oncoming traffic.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Brian O'Conner's choice of 'weapon'"][/caption]

Is it worth watching? Hell, yes, but only one time. :) I would only watch it again in the near future just to see Han's face and maybe in the further future just to refresh my memory of the storyline. In my opinion, it's not a must-watch-over-and-over-until-I-die film like I did with Tokyo Drift. For the men, this film is a non-stop orgasm of fast cars and skimpily-dressed women. Drool over the lovingly-constructed engine by Letty, and look on in jealousy as Brian O'Conner picked not one but three compounded speedsters just for his mission (and wince in agony as he inevitably wreck them). For the women, we~ll, unless you like cars and speed or an action-packed movie, the only thing that might keep you going is the male actors. *shrug*

It is in my opinion as a former media studies student that the filmmakers did one major mistake in this movie; they killed off someone. No, I won't mention the name but I still think it created a sort of standstill in making future installments of the movie. Perhaps the filmmakers thought that it would help add some spice or help to push the movie in another direction if there will ever be a Fast & Furious 5.

For my fellow Malaysians, there are not much scenes that require censorship so watching it in the cinema is A-OK.

So, as usual, here are the list of goofs courtesy of the Internet Movie Database. Truth be told, I didn't notice any goofs so they must have worked hard to edit in as much action scenes as they could to make any mistakes unnoticeable, ahhaha.

Best quote from the movie:

Brian O'Conner: This is where my jurisdiction ends.
Dominic Toretto: And this is where mine begins.