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Let's all hope the dangerous Road Warrior-style racing of The Fast and the Furious doesn't inspire young viewers to try this kind of thing. Actor Vin Diesel, who "arrived" as a soldier in Saving Private Ryan, was the voice of The Iron Giant, and played a dangerous criminal in Pitch Black, is back as a tough-talking gang leader who hijacks cars and participates in high-speed illegal racing on the streets of Los Angeles after dark. Paul Walker plays an undercover cop who infiltrates the racing gang and finds himself accelerating into trouble, partly because he's falling in love with the leader's sister (Jordana Brewster). Director Rob Cohen, who directed Dragonheart and The Skulls, is surprising many critics with his skillful choreography of some thrilling action sequences. But when it comes to a meaningful story, most agree that the film is running on fumes.

"Cohen's formula race and chase scenes alternate with constant macho posturing for a dull but noisy tale of justice ignored," says the U.S. Catholic Conference. Preview cautions, "While the dialogue includes a lot of obscenities … one area of concern is the glamorization of the dangerous and illegal street racing. Young drivers may find it hard to resist imitating the high-energy racing scenes. Along with gasoline and nitrogen, this racing story is also fueled by images of alcohol use and abuse, implied promiscuous sex and questioning loyalties." Movieguide's critic agrees: "Despite some minor redemptive elements, The Fast and the Furious condones, if not glamorizes, reckless, dangerous driving and casual premarital sexuality. Although slickly photographed, it also has an over-complicated, formulaic, sometimes hokey script. Furthermore, Paul Walker's acting fails to match Vin Diesel's intensity."

Despite thinking the movie is a "vapid experience," Michael Elliott of Movie Parables believes the film is review-proof, and this weekend's gross (an uncannily appropriate term) of more than $40 million proved he's absolutely right. "It doesn't matter that the story is lame or that the dialogue is cheesier than a wheel of gouda. The Fast and the Furious will bring in its millions faster than its souped-up cars can race down Manhattan's streets." Elliott argues that the film's characters are shown to be victims of a sort of idolatry in the way they treat their flashy cars.

"Well, it's not the worst movie I ever saw," says Crosswalk's Phil Boatwright. "In fact it's difficult not to get caught up in the splendidly photographed racing sequences." He goes on to berate the film's caustic soundtrack and its "cliché-ridden storyline, which has all the profundity of a Tidy Bowl commercial." His biggest objection is the film's "moral ambiguity. We find ourselves rooting for the baddies. … It is the members of the establishment who seem to be the real outlaws."

SPOILER WARNING! Focus on the Family's Steven Issac calls it "A veritable Point Break clone [that] replaces surfing with racing and bank heists with truck-jacking." Issac finds some signs of meaningfulness in the way the team members watch out for each other, and for family. But he also sees dangerous moral relativism at work in the film's finale: "The Fast and the Furious subscribes to a new, more relativistic sensibility in which the cop lets the crook go in the end because he can't bear to cage such a beautifully wild creature. In other words, he feels sorry for him. Despite how outraged some folks get about the inadequacies of our justice system, that's an abominable message to throw at teens. If it's okay to be the 'bad guy' if you're a nice guy, then we should just throw all the annoying people in jail and be done with it. [This] marks a radical shift in our cultural conscience."

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June (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45