Product Details

• Actors: Thom Barry, Jordana Brewster, Vin Diesel, David Douglas (II), Noel Gugliemi
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Universal Studios
• VHS Release Date: January 2, 2002
• Run Time: 107 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (712 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005RYQO
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #45,672 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

• This is item 1 in The Fast and the Furious Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

A guilty pleasure with excess horsepower, The Fast and the Furious efficiently combines time-honored male fantasies (hot cars, hot women, hot action) into a vacuous plot of crystalline purity. It's trash, but it's fun trash, in which a hotshot Los Angeles cop named Brian (Paul Walker) infiltrates a gang of street racers suspected of fencing stolen goods from hijacked trucks. The gang leader is Dom (Vin Diesel), ex-con and reigning king of the street racers, who lives for those 10 seconds of freedom when his high-performance "rice rocket" (a highly modified Asian import) hurtles toward another quarter-mile victory. Racing is street theater for a lawless youth subculture, and Dom is a star behind the wheel--charismatic, dangerous, and protective toward his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), who's attracted to Brian as the newest member of Dom's car-crazy team.

Director Rob Cohen treats this like Roman tragedy for MTV junkies, pushing every scene to adrenaline-pumping extremes; when his camera isn't caressing a spectrum of nitrous oxide-enhanced dream machines, it's ogling countless slim 'n' sexy race babes. The undercover-cop scenario cheaply borrows the split-loyalty theme perfected in Donnie Brasco; a rival Asian gang adds mystery and menace; and digital trickery is cleverly employed to explore the fuel-injected innards of the day-glo racecars. It's about as substantial as a perfume ad, but just as alluring, and for heavy-metal maniacs of any age, Diesel's superblown '69 Charger proves that Detroit muscle never goes out of style. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker

Fourteen-year-olds will hold their heads in misery, but adults may be mesmerized by an awfulness reminiscent of youth movies from forty years ago. The scene: the street-racing subculture of Los Angeles. The characters: a charismatic leader and possible hijacker (the superbly named Vin Diesel), ready-to-rumble female grease monkeys with bare midriffs (including Michelle Rodriguez), and a handsome undercover cop (Paul Walker) who infiltrates the car-racing gang and develops ambiguous loyalties. Rob Cohen, the director, tries hard for B-movie schlock magic, and attains it during the high-speed car chases, which are genuinely exciting. See this when you are too tired to think. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FAST, FURIOUS, and entertaining, August 5, 2001

By	AOTuning (LA) - See all my reviews

Look. I know that most who've seen this movie (especially the teeenage boys) will automatically tell you "Yea man! It rocked! It's the best movie ever!"

Personally, I'm a tunerhead. I love suped up cars, and the whole street racing scene. I can't say how this movie can relate to the real midnight street racers, but I'm sure it's been Hollywooded up enough to go overboard a little.

But, I was expecting to see terrible acting, a bad script, a bad plot, but cool cars. In reality, the acting is very well done. The script isn't corny, the plot is entertaining, and, well...the cars speak for themselves. (Vin Diesel's Mazda RX7 in the movie just went up for bid on Ebay!) This movie, whether you're into cars, or not, is a must-see. My friends who get bored even when I mention cars and racing still loved the movie for its other aspects. I thought it was awesome, but, hey, to each his own. Why don't you go and see it to check it out?

25 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very entertaining action/thriller, December 23, 2001

By	Nick Gonnella - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Fast and the Furious (DVD)

Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) rules the streets with his "team" in the world of illegal street races. Running a luncheonette and a garage, Dominic makes money to pay for the mortgage on his house, and keep his sister (Jordana Brewster) in school, but that money alone is not enough so he resorts to the illegal ways to keep the cash flowing. Vowing to kill himself before returning to prison, Dominic stays one step ahead of the police until he meets Brian (Paul Walker), an undercover cop investigating a series of bizarre truck heists.

The FBI believe Dominic and his crew are behind the robberies, and it's Brian's job to find enough evidence against, but putting together the case against this crew will prove to be difficult because Brian becomes friends with Dominic and starts to understand his difficult life, and at the same time he is falling in love with his sister. To make matters worse, Dominics rival Johnny Tran drops in to settle some old scores, and the list of suspects in the robbery case is growing larger.

`The Fast And The Furious' is top-notch entertainment. Containing serious action sequences, and a thrilling mystery of the robberies, `The Fast And The Furious scores on many levels. The action scenes are some of the best filmed racing sequences I have ever scene, and the pulsing soundtrack keeps things at a high energy level.

The performances from Walker, and Diesel are right on the money, and the supporting cast of Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Chad Linberg, Johnny Strong and Ted Levine bring life to the characters they play.

Great action, and a pulsing soundtrack will keep you glued to your seat for two hours of entertainment.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Gets off the starting line, but falls short of finish line, June 29, 2002

By	D. Roberts "Hadrian12" (Battle Creek, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Fast and the Furious (DVD)

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS is a movie with an assortment of far-fetched ingerdients that combine to make up a far-fetched plot. It offers beautiful cars and obnoxious characters who combine for some impressive racing / getaway / highway-jacking scenes.

In the end, however, there is one genuinely worthwhile reason to see this movie: Vin Diesel. This is the first movie I've seen him in and I was quite taken with his acting style. He has an exceptional screen-presence, especially for a relative newcomer to the acting guild. The jury is still out on whether Diesel can play more than just a tough-guy, but even if he can't, he still plays that role very well. I'm looking forward to seeing him in TRIPLE-X.

Beyond Diesel's theatrical performance, the film does not offer a whole lot. The "hero" of the movie is a cop who is less likeable than the "villain" (played by Diesel). He also non-chalantly breaks the #1 rule in a policeman's code-of-conduct: never EVER commit an crime with the efficacy of enforcing a law. But oh, well, this is Hollywood.

If you want a far superior movie in the fast car genre, I would recommend GONE IN 60 SECONDS. To me, it was far more satisfying than this one.