Fast and Furious

FAST AND FURIOUS (2009) - July 30, 2009
Another mediocre entry in the Fast and the Furious series; this one features the return of Vin Diesel, out to get revenge for the death of his girlfriend. Unfortunately, even the return of Toretto can't make up for the mediocre script and Justin Lin's shoddy direction. The film actually starts off with a surprisingly well made action set-piece involving the hijacking of a moving truck, but it's all downhill from there. It's really quite baffling how that scene can be so much better than the rest of the film -- all the other action scenes, featuring lots of close-ups and shaky-cam, are muddled and unexciting. The non-action stuff is equally mediocre, and as the film went on I was getting more and more bored. I was thinking that this was slightly better than the other two sequels, if only for the presence of Vin Diesel, but I gave Tokyo Drift two stars, which was probably too generous. *1/2