Product Description
The Fast and The Furious (2001)(#ad)
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 106
Director: Rob Cohen
Cast:
Jordana Brewster
Vin Diesel
Chad Lindberg
Matt Schulze
Johnny Strong
Michelle Rodriguez
Paul Walker
Rick Yune
Rating: 2.5/5
Overview
This is the first film in the franchise that’s continued until today. The movie was produced by Neal H. Mortiz and directed by Rob Chen. The movie is about the story of Brian O’Connor who’s an undercover police officer. His mission is to stop a group of hijackers that are using race cars to hijack semi trucks.
The movie was inspired by an article in Vibe magazine entitled Racer X. It focused on illegal street racing in New York City.
The movie was filmed in Southern California, New England, and NYC. The movie was released in June 2001 and earned $207 million worldwide. The Fast and the Furious was re-released in June 2016 to celebrate its 15th anniversary. It also launched the first sequel “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003).
Plot Summary
The film’s story begins with three drivers hijacking a truck that’s loaded with various electronics.The next day,after the heist, an undercover LAPD officer named Brian O’Conner gets assigned to find the gang that’s done the crime. Vince works for a Dominic Torreto who’s a local street racer. He starts a fight with Brian that Dominic breaks up.
Dominic then sets up a drag race that includes three other drivers including Brian. Brian bets his car but loses when his car’s engine over-heats. Dominic wins the race. The LAPD arrives after the race so everyone must leave. Dominic parks his racing car in a garage and walks home.
He and Brian go into the territory of an old racing rival of Dominic. Johnny Tran and his cousin named Lance Nguyen then blow up Brian’s vehicle. Dominic informs Brian he has to give him a 10-second car after losing the old one.
Brian brings an old car to replace the Eclipse that was blown up. Dominic’s crew starts to fix the car. Brian starts dating Mia. Brian thinks that Tran had done the hijacking of the trucks with the electronics.
Brian says that he’ll check out the cars of Dominic’s rivals at the street racing event known as Race Wars in the desert. Brian later sees a big shipment of electronics in Tran’s garage.
After Brian reports the electronics it’s discovered that they had been purchased legally. Brian then believes that Dominic had coordinated the truck thefts. Brian is then invited by Dominic to Race Wars.
Tran and Dominic fight when Tran accused him of informing the police that he was responsible for the hijacking. Brian then learns that Dominic's crew was indeed responsible for the heists.
Dominic plans their last heist of a semi-trailer truck. It’s not successful this time because the driver of the semi truck is armed. Dominic later crashes into a semi-truck during a race. Brian then gives him his own car’s keys for the car he owed him.
Director/Cast
The director of the film is Rob Cohen. He was inspired to make the movie that’s one of the Amazon movies. after reading the 1998 “Vibe” article about NYC street racing. He also watched an illegal street race that took place in Los Angeles.
Diesel won the role of Toretto even though he had only had supporting roles in films before The Fast and the Furious.
Background
Roger Corman licensed the title rights of The Fast and the Furious (1955) to Universal. This allowed the title of one of the most exciting amazon prime videos to be used for the project. Both of the movies were about car racing.
The movie that’s also an amazon prime video was filmed in different locations in Los Angeles and Southern California. They included Dodger Stadium, Echo Park, Silver Lake, and Little Saigon. The scene that included the last rig robbery was filmed near Diamond Valley Lake.
Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster didn’t have driver’ licenses before the filming of the movie. So they took driving lessons during the movie’s production.
The movie included the filming of an alternate ending with the title More than Furious. It includes Tanner dropping off Brian at the Toretto home. He sees Mia packing since she’s planning to move away. Brian informs her that he has time. The alternate ending was included in the bundle DVD version.
Release/Reception The Fast and the Furious was released in North America in June 2001. During the opening weekend, it earned over $40 million. The widest release included nearly 2,900 theaters.
During the theatrical run, the movie earned over $144.5 million in the US and over $62.7 million abroad. The worldwide box office total was about $207.3 million. Meanwhile, the movie’s budget was $38 million.
The movie has a 53% approval rating on the aggregator website. The later movies in the series have generally received better ratings than the first ones. That’s mainly due to better stories being developed during the franchise’s more recent films. The Fast and the Furious received mixed reviews.
One of the main criticisms was that the film had a lot of excellent action scenes but lacked a good story. It was compared to the teenage exploitation films of the 1950s. However, the franchise’s films received much better reviews. That was due to various factors including better stories and character development.
All of the movies since Fast 5 have received a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s an interesting trend because the first film of franchises tends to be the best and the sequels usually have lower ratings. However, in the case of this franchise, the opposite has occurred.
The movie was released on DVD in January 2002. Then a second DVD was released in June 2003. It was marketed as a “prelude” for the movie’s sequel.
This included a short film that led up to the franchise’s sequel. A short version of the short film is also included on the DVD release of the sequel. This is also worth viewing just as the movie itself is a good option to watch movies online.
