Wolff rating: NOT BAD
Plot summary: Young guy tries to join street-racing gang while precision-driving hijackings are occuring around the area.
Biased, pithy comments: This movie depicts the kind of fantasy-land that just-pubescent boys dream of living in---shiny fast cars, no adults, and identical long-legged gals who are drawn to cars and their drivers like bees to honey. In real life, cars are expensive, racing teams prohibitively so, and car accidents and danger to pedestrians and property made a brief craze disappear under a hail of police raids. Oh, but what a pretty fantasy it makes. Throughout the movie, adults will shake their heads at the haphazard plotting and the overdone derring-do of the hijackers (wouldn't it be easier, cheaper, and faster to shoot out the tires? Or even just pay off the driver?) and the idiotic police (where are the helicopters during the last hijacking? Does the FBI only have one guy with a shotgun during their sting?). However, each car chase is fantastic---the buzzing souped-up Hondas and Nissans blasting through the Hollywood hills, the fantastic graphics of pulsing motors, and the throbbing music all work wonderfully to make each of the chases absorbing even as your forebrain is thinking, ``But, but, why isn't he calling for backup? Is it even legal, much less safe, to be shooting at them like that?'' Same cars, even some of the same actors (although Walker is the new Kneau Reeves---cute, but without affect), but a smarter script would make this a movie to remember, like ``Predator'' or something on that level. As it is, it's just noise, cars, and pretty people---kind of like Los Angeles. A summer rental on a Saturday night, but be sure you did something useful that day to atone for it.
Other Notes: Last kvetch. In one scene, the techie is talking about ``If we do this, you'll save two pounds,'' as if that kind of weight matters. Now look at Vin Diesel's car in the first scene---take away that gigantic stereo, and you've saved 50lbs. Same thing with the eight-pound laptop that Walker carries around. I think this is a car politically-correct movie---you have every kind of low-cost car brand, from Honda to Volkswagen. This might have worked if they had made civilization collapsing, like in the first ``Mad Max'' film---it would explain the police's ineptness at stopping the gangs more plausible, but then it would make the lifting of the last scene of ``Road Warrior'' even more obvious.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Rick Yune.
Directed by: Rob Cohen