Testerone-fuelled fun, The Fast and The Furious shares a lot with it's early 90's predecessor - dumb cop drawn into a sexy world of crime and adrenaline, mysterious, charismatic leader taking said cop under his wing, decoy criminal (rival surfers in Break, Rick Yune's remarkably named Johnny Tran (Chan apparently being far too stereotypical a name) in Furious) - the list goes on. But don't let it be said that this is a complaint.
As a testerone-fuelled thrill stacked with amusing dumb one-liners, Point Break was a high point in the genre, as is The Fast and The Furious. The action sequences break new ground in the depiction of speed on film, Cohen's camera crash zooming and flash cutting so fast that the he literally creates a blur. As such, the action set-pieces are undoubtably the high point, stacked with everything the red-blooded Millenium man could want - fast cars, faster girls, and men we envy for being so damn cool it hurts (mainly for the fact that they're surrounded by the first two). Hell, its even got a cameo for pint-sized rapper Ja Rule.
It does fall a little in the acting stakes - but no-one was really expecting Oscar-calibre work here. Walker is amiable enough as Keanu 2000, and Brewster puts her dusky charms to good use in what is pretty much a nothing role. Mention should be given to the impossibly square-jawed Rick Yune as Tran, who comes close to being noticeable on screen against Diesel, but in the end is overmatched. Undoubtedly the star of the film, (in fact, it comes close to stalling whenever he's not on screen) Diesel is a hulking presence, full of greasepaint cool and barely restrained violence.
Either way, The Fast and The Furious remains one of the best car films around, absolutely certain to make you race the next man fool enough to pull level with you at the traffic lights. One for the lads and a Friday night, and none the worse for it.