Title: Fast and Furious 4
Director: Justin Lin
Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes
Genre: Action, Thriller
Set in between the second and third installment of the Fast and Furious series, it talks on how Dominic Toretto (Vin Dinsel) is on a path of vengeance as his love of his life, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) was murdered by a gang of drug dealers. Backing him up, is an FBI agent Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) who is attempting to catch the ever elusive Braga.
Well, I am surprised to say that this is an enjoyable movie. I am no fan of high speed car chases since I find them pretty repetitive and boring... well, let me tell you then that there is only one car race and about 3 to 4 car chases only throughout the movie. And to make things even better, there are no gross sex scenes at all! So, what normally would be sex scenes are instead replaced with actions, emotional acting and character building.
One might have some difficulty in catching up since the first installment of Fast and Furious made its way to the silver screen around 8 years ago. So, I am unsure if the characters (apart from Vin Dinsel) are new or the old gang. However, one doesn't really need to watch the first installment to understand this movie... and there lays its brilliance.
Lots of directors made the assumption that all movie goers have watched the previous series of their movies and did not even bother to reintroduce the characters again. Anyway, apart from the really fake burning oil tanker scene, there rest are pretty much believable and is suspenseful all the way... and I did not even managed to guess who Braga is up until the end!
One thing I am dissatisfied with is the speed of the car scenes... basically, they are shown in such speed that it left me reeling as to what really happened. The intention was to show how great the driver's skills are and how they manipulated the car into an improbable maneuver. However, due to the lightning speed scenes, I was left wondering what actually happened.
There is one scene where I think the driver actually overtake another car by spinning his car out of control, but without watching the movie again in slow motion, I can never be sure. I supposed those who have some skills in car racing would be able to decipher the split second scene, but to me, it's all just a mix of cars banging and crashing.
Anyway, the storyline is not deep at all, but this does not make the movie bad... instead, the simplicity of it is the key feature... it's just a simple story of vengeance... no plot within plot.
The acting, too were top notch. Vin Dinsel is an extremely intimidating man and Paul Walker shines as a FBI who is torn between responsibility and friendship.
In conclusion, it is a movie that is worth watching even for non-car enthusiast.
Observation: Isn't it rather expensive and waste of talent to kill a driver after only one delivery?
Bottomline: Watch it!
Bamboo Rating: 3.3 / 5.0
3 comments:
Oohh great! I was going to watch it anyway but with your great review, it just reinforced my decision :P
iamthewitch: Glad to be of assistance...
I just saw this in the cinema! Not what i would normally watch but I have to say Paul Walker made for great eye candy and I thought the scenes in the tunnel and the race where they're choosing drivers were gripping!
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