Fast & Furious (also known as Fast & Furious 4 in other countries) is the fourth film in The Quick and the Furious film series. It is an interquel, set between 2 Firm 2 Furious and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. The movie was released in Australia on April 23, 2009. The plot connects with the pilot picture of the series from which Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster reprise their roles. The picture was directed by Justin Lin, who also directed the third episode of the series, The Quick and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.After a successful run of hijacking fuel tankers in the Dominican Republic, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) has become an international criminal. Under increasing pressure from the local police, Dom’s partner Han (from the third film) decides to fly to Tokyo. Dom is afraid of what will find to Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) if the government ever see him and join her to him, so he sleeps with her and leaves her.
Some time later, Letty is base to have been shot dead in her wrecked car. Dom returns to the view of her murder just outside of L.A. There, he discovers traces of nitromethane, which allows him to take a personal investigation up to a certain David Park, who had purchased the nitromethane for the driver who killed Letty. Park is coerced into helping Dom get a place in a street race, arranged by Ramon Campos, where he will supposedly find Letty’s killer.
Meanwhile, Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), now an FBI agent, is assigned to cut down a notorious drug lord named Arturo Braga. Brian’s investigation also leads him to David Park. He arrives at Park’s apartment while Dom is still interrogating him (by keeping him by his ankles outside a window). At the FBI office, Park also tells Brian that the aforementioned street race grants the winner a point on the squad that traffics heroin across the United States-Mexico border for Braga. He visits Dom’s sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster), warning her to stop away from Dom, as he will finally get caught.
Did I love this movie? Hell, yes. And it wasn’t just because I saw the film with my wonderful boyfriend (although I must confess, it is ever the better time when I am with him). This sequence is close to the pilot and fits perfectly within the sequence. The report is believable, although such street racing through the streets, lanes and motorways of Los Angeles is amazing without police interference.
It is an action movie, and at no point did the action check and long winded explanations take over. The court was clear without unnecessary scenes of heterosexual naked passion (thank goodness). The impulsive and the cars were, of course, the foreground with great scenes of havoc and end on isolated country roads, freeways, urban streets and lanes, open desert country, and better of all, through a winding series of old, timber reinforced, narrow tunnels.
There was little violence, although people did die in horrendous deaths; the better of all was the end of the evil leader in a splendid full-on man-vs-car THUMP!
What was amiss with this movie? I view the acting by some of the FBI agents, particularly the squad leader sucked; it was over-acting at its worst, although this may have been designed to help portray the incompetency of the FBI agents. I love it is rather a long way from Los Angeles to the Mexican border but it seemed that they were in Los Angeles just before midnight and so suddenly at the frame just after midnight with their cars. Apart from that, I actually can’t criticise the picture as it fulfilled its aim: an exciting, fast paced, action film with some really great cars (except the Honda Integra!).
Would I see it again? Yes, but this time I would see it in its logical sequence with the three others in the series. I think there is already a fifth in output and I look ahead to that.

Author: Earwig’s Thoughts