Dominic Toretto: Vin Diesel	Brian Spindler: Paul Walker
Letty: Michelle Rodriguez	Mia Toretto: Jordana Brewster
Johnny Tran: Rick Yune	Lance: Reggie Lee
Jesse: Chad Lindberg	Edwin: Ja Rule
Vince: Matt Schulze	Director: Rob Cohen

30 Second Bottom Line: On-street drag racers in Los Angeles sport reputations and attitudes to match professional wrestlers or trash talking NBA players. A small group within that souped up community is committing daring truck hijackings of high-end electronic merchandise. An undercover cop tries to solve the case.

Story Line: The combination of action and music in The Fast and the Furious is the best I can recall in any movie. As you watch the street racers, the action is complimented by the sound track blaring from the surround sound speakers. This is indeed a film that it pays to see on the big screen with a state of the art sound system. The Fast and the Furious is similar to recent action films such as Vertical Limit and Driven; they all have outstanding action linked to a weak story line and pedestrian acting. The plot and acting here is really in the "B" movie category so in spite of the great action and music, the film only gets two and a half stars. That said… it may still be worth the price of admission.

There are four major components to the story. Young twenty-somethings drag race souped up cars through the streets of LA and some of them are criminals who hijack eighteen wheelers for their electronic merchandise. A cop working undercover to catch the hijackers becomes involved with the sister of a major racing figure and gains a dangerous enemy in another racer who also wants to sleep with her. The plot is essentially a joy ride through the resolution of these variants.

Brian Spindler (Paul Walker) is assigned to work undercover in the drag racing community. He goes to the restaurant owned by Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and makes friends with his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), who is a waitress. Although Dominic is suspicious of Brian, it's his buddy Vince (Matt Schulze) who is outraged. Vince is jealous of the good-looking Brian and loses his cool when he thinks that Mia is ready to hop into bed with Brian rather than him.

Over $6 million in electronic goods have been hijacked by a gang of street racers and the political pressure is on to catch them before the truckers take matters into their own hands.

Tell Me More About It: The cars are really cool. It's more fun watching these cars perform than those in Driven because these are modified regular cars, VW's and Honda Civics, that we can relate to. There is plenty of one-upsmanship as the guys bet money on who will win races. The women mouth profound platitudes to the men like "This is yours whether you win or lose…if you win…you get her too…" and "You girls skate (get out of here) before I leave treadmarks on your face."

Dominic's girlfriend is Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), who for the most part scowls throughout the movie. Rodriquez is more than a pretty face, as she can also throw a punch better than most of the guys (it looks like her starring role in Girlfight was the real thing). And she drives a race car very convincingly. Still she comes across as wooden as compared to her performance in Girlfight.

Jordana Brewster also seems to be restrained in her acting as well. It appears that to get a PG-13 rating, the director traded violence and sex for mild language and loads of action. Other than Letty sitting on Dominic's lap, everything is innuendo. Even when Mia tells Brian at the bar that he needs "…some sleep and a bath, let's go to my place," we see nothing. The film cuts from the bar to Brian being back on the job the next day. I am told that there was a sexy scene, which was not just edited, but deleted. We know that Brewster can deliver sexuality on the screen as she showed in The Invisible Circus. There is no message here as there is in crazy/beautiful, so going for the PG-13 rating may be a good marketing move, but it results in a lower quality film.

We also see the marketing of the film in how it is cast, portraying ethnic diversity. Lance Nguyen and Johnny Tran lead a polished but ruthless Asian motorcycle gang called a "wolfpack," that is in competition with Dominic. Not only has a business deal gone sour but Dominic slept with Tran's sister. In one of the drag race sequences, Ja Rule, as Edwin, an African-American driver, has a cameo scene. Add to the mix Michelle Rodriguez and an uncredited Latino actor as Hector, and we have a politically correct movie, with lots of action and no sex.

As hokey as the story is, the ending is fairly decent. Part of reason is a quarter mile race in the magical "10 second car" that can only be described as awesome. While some might call this movie trashy, to me it's a step up from the slasher movies that have often become the standard date film. This movie is pretty good junk food. Lots of action and no sex…not a bad idea!!

Vin Diesel: Boiler Room	Paul Walker: Brokedown Palace
Michelle Rodriguez: Girlfight	Jordana Brewster: The Invisible Circus
Rick Yune: Snow Falling on Cedars	Reggie Lee: Psycho Beach Party
Chad Lindberg: October Sky	Ja Rule: Turn it UP
Matt Schulze: Blade	Rob Cohen: Bird on a Wire