Trashback: A Furious Case of the Runs

Hey gasmi, you know it’s often said that the sign of great cinema is that it makes you think. It forces you to examine the world in a way you hadn’t before, and if you ask me maybe great cinema needs to get all out of my grill and keep its irrational need for “thinking” to itself. I don’t really like to think on my day off, hell I’m not fond of doing it at work when I’m getting paid. No, on a lazy Saturday, I need a movie who accepts me for who I am, and you know what? Crap movies do just that, and today’s movie, the 2001 release, The Fast and The Furious, is like your mom making you a nice big pot of chicken soup after you boned an algebra midterm in high school. It’s nothing but love baby. Just see for yourself after the jump.

Our movie starts with a truck being loaded at a pier full of all sorts of tasty electronic goodies, and some vaguely shifty looking longshoreman making a phone call. Later that night, the truck is driving down the freeway when three clown cars pull up behind it, and these aren’t the good happy loving clown cars that we all cherish so much…look, does anyone have anything that even remotely resembles a positive feeling towards clowns any more? I know I don’t, clowns are creepy, and as far as I’m concerned Barnum and Bailey should sack up and stop calling it “clown college” and go with the more accurate serial killer college. Wait, what was I talking about again? Was it something to do with the circus? No? Oh, the movie, right, thanks, you’re the bestest!

Anyway, these evil clown cars show up and proceed to highjack our helpless, not bothering a soul big rig truck. Oh but it gets better, because the evil clown cars proceed to hijack the truck in the most overly complicated and most vaguely ridiculous way possible. How do they do it? Look, I don’t want to spoil it for you, but let me just tell you it involves both crossbows, and tranquilizer darts, but not tranquilizer darts fired from crossbows because that would almost make sense.

(That being said this is good scene, as is just about any driving or chase scene in this movie. As for the parts of the movie with dialogue and emoting? Well, we’ll get to those later.)

We cut to a new scene. The sun is coming up out by Dodger’s stadium and our hero Brian Spilner (Paul Walker) is out in his own little clown car which he proceeds to drive really, really fast, and then jam on the brakes and come to a screeching halt.
What’s that? This scene makes no sense? Hey, quit being so judgmental. I mean, The Fast and the Furious hasn’t mentioned that yet again I am you are completely unprepared for swimsuit season has it? It’s a two way street, okay?

Paul Walker goes off and gets some lunch, because after all the sun was just coming up 10 seconds ago. He goes to this little market where Mia Torretto (Jordana Brewster) makes him a tuna fish sandwich.

Now I just have to say this, because it needs to be said. Jordana Brewster is a very pretty young woman, but whoever was in charge of hair and makeup in this movie boned Fido something fierce. I can say this because Ms. Brewster is rocking a hairstyle that makes her forehead look only slightly smaller then mine (the perfect size for a Riverdance) and would I be a mean person if I pointed out her eyebrows look like they are about an 1/8th of an inch of being able to pull off “Hands across Jordana Brewster’s forehead”? I am? Well too bad, sometimes we all have to deal with the truth and this time so does Jordana Brewster’s forehead.

Paul Walker and Unibrow engage in a little light banter and then he reads his magazine. Okay, he looks at the pictures but they are in the magazine too. While Brian sounds out his words, we get an archetypical LA moment.

Four more little clown cars show up, and exactly four people get out of the cars. First we see Michelle Rodriguez, which means we can count some quality pouting in this movie, a little twitchy guy, a guy who will barely be in the rest of the movie, and last but not least a great big douche.

There are lots of ways you can spot a douche. A wife beater might give a guy away, or the generic tribal band tattoo he’s sporting, or even the fact you can tell just by the bloating and look of confused rage in his eyes that he’s about six weeks into a Dianabol cycle. Those are all good signs, and this guy is sporting all of them, but there is an even more important sign that this clown is a prince among douches. He’s wearing the one leather wrist strap on his arm for no apparent reason, and once you see that strap all debate can be stopped. (For proof of this fun fact just check out any picture of K-Fed in 2005.)

Wristy McDouche wanders into the store and it turns out he’s got a crush on unibrow too. He has words with Paul Walker which leads to the fisticuffs. Man if only there was someone in this movie who had experience as a bouncer. Da-Duh-DA! Vin Diesel to the rescue. Vin wanders out of the store and breaks up their little spat and tells Paul he doesn’t want to see him around any more.

It’s now later that night, and Paul Walker is at a big underground street racing thingie with his own little clown car. It turns out he’s there for the big super secret drag race with the king of the streets, our boy Vinnie. Paul Walker gets in the drag race by betting his clown car and the race is on.

Paul Walker is in dead last, but to worry because he’s got a super secret weapon, laughing gas. No, not for the screenwriter or the audience, it makes your car go super duper fast. So Paul Walker hits this button in his car and vroom!

Paul Walker’s car goes shooting up past most of the other cars and he’s getting closer and closer to Vin Diesel’s car. He’s just got one tiny problem. The little computer in his car that runs his laughing gas doohickey is telling him his car is about to start making with the hooie kablooie. How does Paul Walker deal with this news? The way any overly attractive person would handle the news. He knocks the screen down so he won’t have to look at it and hits another button that uses even more laughing gas. Incidentally, this is reason number four why the winner of America’s Next Top Model will never be allowed to operate the supercollider.

And for a little while it works. Paul Walker just about catches up with The Big VD and it looks like he might win. Too bad for him Vinnie has laughing gas too, and when Vin hits the button the last thing Paul Walker sees is the back of Vin’s 45 pound head as Vin Diesel wins the race.

So not only is Paul Walker a big fat loser, he’s got other problems. You remember his computer telling him he was going too fast and his clown car was about to explode? Well that wasn’t an inanimate object’s desperate cry for attention. PW’s car starts falling apart. He’s got rivets shooting all over the car (which is cool to watch), and eventually a big piece of the floor of the car drops off, and by the time he comes to a stop he’s pretty much fried out the engine on his little clown car.

After the race everyone gathers around for Vin Diesel to give us his philosophy of life, but the cops show up and everyone has to haul ass to keep from going to jail. Vin Diesel gets away and parks his car, but the cops show up again to arrest Vinnie for walking down the street. (Apparently that’s a crime in LA).

Luckily for Vin and the plot Paul Walker shows up and gives the big lug a ride in his little clown car. The cops make a fuss, but they are poop out of luck, because Paul Walker is able to outrun them in his car. What’s that? How does a car that just burnt out its engine outrun police interceptors? Hey what’s your problem? Why do you keep hassling this movie? I haven’t seen The Fast and the Furious point out that I you just polished off an entire half gallon of Butterfinger ice cream in a 24 hour period. (14 servings per container my ever expanding ass! It’s three, maybe four tops.) Just enjoy the movie, okay?

Paul Walker and Vinnie get to hang out and find out they have a lot in common, like clown cars and running away from the cops, and oh being in jail. So our two leads are having a moment, when fate intervenes. That is to say, a bunch of Asian guys with machineguns show up on motorcycles.

The guys end up pulling into this place with a big statue of Confucius, and we find out the Asian guys are Vietnamese cousins named Johnny and Lance. If Johnny had been in Dances With Wolfs his Indian name would have been Waxes His Eyebrows, and Lance has very dysfunctional relationship with snakeskin pants. (He loves them, but no love is ever coming back to him). It turns out these guys have some issues with Vinnie. The Big VD says it has to do with a business deal gone bad and Vin sleeping with somebody’s sister, but I’m thinking that given Lance’s love of pleather as a pants fabric, somebody got turned away at the velvet rope at least one time.

The cousins make like they are just going to scare Vinnie and Paul Walker but then they come back and machinegun Paul Walker’s clown car, which technically he lost to Vin Diesel in that drag race, but you know nobody’s filled out the paperwork yet: oh look, a fireball! The clown car bursts into flames, and because it’s full of laughing gas, it makes with a nice little fireball. And with that, Paul Walker and Vin Diesel are hoofing it again.

The guys end up getting a cab back to Vin Diesel’s place and Vin Diesel invites Paul Walker inside. When they go in they find out all of Vin Diesel’s friends are there and they’ve responded the way any normal people would if Vinnie went missing for four hours and/or may have been arrested by the cops. They are throwing a humungous party.

Vin Diesel is a little ticked, and rightly so. He gathers up everyone’s beer and offers Paul Walker his choice because he’s his new bestest buddy. Paul Walker is a little taken back by this offer to drink somebody else’s half drank beer, but cheer up Paul Walker, it could be worse. If Vinnie had really liked you he would have regurgitated food into your mouth like you were a baby bird.

Paul Walker takes Wristy McDouche’s beer which doesn’t do anything to move him up on Wristy McDouche’s Christmas card list, and then Jordana Brewster shows up. It took her a while because she had to fix her hair first, sadly the word “bangs” never entered her mind. She and Paul Walker flirt a little bit, then Wristy McDouche comes over and Jordana Brewster offers Paul Walker a ride home.

It’s the next day and Paul Walker is just driving down the street minding his own business, when he gets pulled over and arrested by the cops. Yet another example of the way the man is always hassling blond blue eyed white guys.

The cops take Paul Walker to the fancy house in the Hollywood Hills, and it turns out Paul Walker is a cop too. Not only is Paul Walker a cop, he’s a gritty undercover cop. Why are you laughing?

Okay, I’m laughing too. Don’t get me wrong, if I ever needed to send an undercover cop into the Osmonds, Paul Walker would be right up at the top of my list, and I think if you needed to get deep intel on Calvin Cline underwear models, Paul Walker would be your go to guy. But to send him undercover into the urban underground street racing scene? Err, not so much.

Whatever, Paul Walker is a cop and he’s here to meet with the bigwigs. His boss is Ted Levine, who is the Captain on Monk, where he is very likeable. Unfortunately Ted Levine was Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, so he’s pretty much going to creep me out for the rest of my life. Ted seems to be a pretty good boss in this movie which just goes to prove my Ted Levine theory, that he’s a pretty good guy as long as he’s not trying to make a suit out of human skin.

Too bad for Paul Walker Ted Levine isn’t the big boss, that guy is some big boned FBI agent who seems really crabby. Judging by his build I’m saying he’s two weeks into Jenny Craig and ready to eat the family cat. The FBI agent reminds Paul Walker that they want to catch whoever has been hijacking trucks in LA and they need to do it right away. Then he asks if Ted Levine is going to eat the other half of his muffin.

Paul Walker heads back to Vin Diesel and shows up with this bombed out car to take the place of the one that got blown up last night. Sure it will take a lot of work for it to actually, you know, move, but that gives Paul Walker to perfect opportunity to get into Vin Diesel’s gang and Jordana Brewster’s pants.

Say what you want about Paul Walker in this movie, the guy works like Santa’s little elves. He’s doing his undercover gig with the big VD, fixing up his new clown car, and he works in an auto parts store. Fun fact, check out the deleted scene where Paul Walker delivers newspapers on a BMX bike.

Anyway, this really nice Mexican guy who’s kind of Paul Walker’s friend comes into the store and wants to buy a whole mess of fancy schmancy racing parts. Oh and the Mexican guy wants to pay cash, which makes Paul Walker immediately suspicious.
So late one night Paul Walker gets all Charlie’s Angels on our ass and breaks into the nice Mexican guy’s garage. Too bad for Paul Walker the nice Mexican guy is totally on the up and up. Paul Walker is pretty disappointed because he still has no idea who the bad guys are, and when he leaves the building some bad guy smacks him in the face with a shotgun.

It’s Wristy McDouche. It turns out he and Vin Diesel were following Paul Walker around and want to have a little talk now. Vin Diesel is pretty reasonable, and wants to know why Paul Walker is breaking into garages. Paul Walker gives Vinnie a sob story about how he needs to win at these big races coming up so he can pay off Vin Diesel. Wristy McDouche doesn’t buy this for a second, but Vin Diesel thinks Paul Walker is telling the truth. Do you know how bad a situation has to get for the guy who looks like he wandered away from an exhibit at the Museum of Natural History to be the smartest guy in the room? Well I guess you don’t need a MENSA card to check a guest list in front of a nightclub.

Vinnie not only buys Paul Walker’s story, he decides they should break into Johnny Trang’s garage to see what those guys have under the hood. When they get there Paul Walker finds a whole bunch of TV’s and DVD players, just like the ones that got stolen at the beginning of the movie. Not only that, but Waxes His Eyebrows and Pleather Pants show up and start smacking a fence around. Wow do these guys look really guilty to you too?

Well they sure as poop look really guilty to the big boned FBI guy because he wants to arrest them right now and go for a Grand Slam Breakfast at Denny’s afterwards as a treat. Paul Walker points out that they don’t have any actual evidence yet and that for that he needs more time. The big boned FBI guy is pretty ticked, because he’s getting sick of two pieces of dry toast and half an apple for breakfast every morning, but he ends up going along with this because otherwise we only have an 80 minute movie.

So Paul Walker heads out and gets serious about going undercover. Well he takes Unibrow out to dinner, lets her drive his car and then they head back to his place to start making the sweet, sweet love. This is why Paul Walker is in bed with Jordana Brewster when Ted Levine calls up to tell them the hijackers have struck again, and the big boned FBI guy is totally ready to go off his diet, so they will be arresting Waxy and Pleather Pants tomorrow.

The next day there is a big long slow motion scene of SWAT guys making hand and arm signals, breaking through doors, and arresting the two scariest guys in the movie (who kind of look like the leads to an Asian remake of A Night at The Roxberry). There is just one tiny little problem. Waxy and Pleather Pants didn’t do it. They are totally not the highjackers and it’s all Paul Walker’s fault. At least that’s what the big boned FBI agent is saying.

Paul Walker thinks this is a load of bull stuff, but the big boned FBI guy is saying his blood sugar was all out of whack because of that damn Jenny Craig diet, so he’s putting the whole blame on Paul Walker and Paul Walker’s law enforcement career is about to take it right in the pooper. Unless of course Paul Walker can bring in Vin Diesel in 36 hours, then everything will be hunky dory.

Paul Walker and Vin Diesel are heading up to the big drag race thingie when Paul Walker gets all crafty and undercover on Vinnie. Paul Walker tells Vinnie he knows he’s doing something illegal, and Paul Walker wants in so he can start making some decent money and quit that damned paper route. Vinnie is pretty cool, and tells Paul Walker they’ll talk about that later, but right now they have to concentrate on what is really important, steroids, nutritional supplements, racing.

The gang gets up to the big drag race and everything is going good, until the little twitchy guy decides to bet his car in a drag race with Waxes His Eyebrows. Things get really awkward when the little twitchy guy loses and just drives away. Waxy confronts Vin Diesel and after telling him if Twitchy doesn’t give him his car there is going to be big, big trouble, and accuses Vinnie of being the guy who ratted Waxy out to the cops. Vinnie handles this information the way anyone who been taking a ton of guff from a guy with waxed eyebrows who’s about 40 pounds lighter then him would take it, he starts repeatedly introducing his fist into the side of Waxy’s head.

Some big beefy guys finally step in and break up the fight, but not before Michelle Rodriguez sucker punches Pleather Pants, and I’m not going to lie. That part of the movie never fails to bring a smile to my face.

Okay, so Vin Diesel’s crew has just picked a fight with a pair of machinegun toting crazies, with questionable fashion sense. Show of hands, how many of you out there think this might come up again in the movie? Well some of you are pretty clever, and some of you…well maybe thinking just isn’t your thing?

Anyway, that doesn’t matter right now because Vinnie and his crew need to disappear mysteriously in the middle of the night, after Unibrow tells him he shouldn’t go. After Vinnie leaves, Paul Walker comes over and spills the beans about him being an undercover cop to unibrow, and tells her she needs to tell him where Vinnie is at right away. Unibrow is pretty steamed at first, but Paul Walker is able to convince her that if he doesn’t arrest Vin Diesel then Vinnie will be in serious trouble, mainly because big boned FBI guy is so hungry if he catches Vin, he’ll put an apple in his mouth and eat him whole on the side of the highway. Luckily for Paul Walker and the plot, Jordana Brewster buys this twisted logic and rats out her own brother.

Meanwhile Vinnie and the rest of the guys are off to do a little hijacking. Everyone thinks this is a bad idea because what with the little twitchy guy driving off into the sunset they’re a man short, but Vin tells them they just need to do this one last job, and when was the last time you ever heard of anyone getting into trouble pulling one last job in a movie?

The guys get into big, big trouble right away. Wristy McDouche ends up hanging to the front of the truck they are trying to highjack while the truck driver tries to shoot him with a shotgun. It’s a lot like the big tanker scene in The Road Warrior; only instead of a feral kid this one has a douchbag with a bad tattoo and a leather wrist strap.

By the time Paul Walker shows up, it’s a great big mess. Wristy McDouche is tangled up in a wire and can’t get off of the truck. Michelle Rodriguez crashed her car, and Vin Diesel’s car is pretty shot up too. Luckily Paul Walker is there to save the day. Paul Walker is there to save the day? Man you don’t see those eight words in the same sentence very often, do you?

Paul Walker saves Wristy McDouche and calls for a rescue helicopter to come take him to the hospital. This is when Vin Diesel finds out Paul Walker is a cop, so he handles this news like any mature responsible adult. He gets in his little clown car and hauls ass.

Paul Walker catches up with Vinnie back at his place, and there is a bit of a problem because VD is pretty firm about not going back to prison, and the gun he has makes it hard for Paul Walker to make any sort of effective counter argument.

Luckily, the little twitchy guy shows up and starts blubbering about how sorry he is for driving away and pissing off Waxy and Pleather Pants. Vin Diesel tries to calm him down and tells him everything is going to be okay. This is right when the Nutsy Cousins show up on their little motorcycles and machinegun the poop out of the little twitchy guy.

Look, I’m not saying this happens all the time, but if Vin Diesel’s character in this movie told me my laundry would be done in the next five minutes, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if the building exploded.

Anyway, Vinnie hops in this super cool old school muscle car and he and Paul Walker go hauling ass after Waxy and PP. We get a nice little chase scene out of this, and Waxy and Pleather Pants get run off the road in highly entertaining ways.

So we are back down to Paul Walker and Vin Diesel again, and they both just happen to be in their cars at a red light. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? DRAG RACE! The light turns green and both cars haul ass. This scene involves plenty of slow motion, and a well placed freight train. I highly recommend it.

After our two favorite street racers narrowly miss getting pancaked by a train, Vin Diesel’s car gets clipped by a truck and flips through the air and gets all smashed to poop. Paul Walker comes over and Vinnie isn’t driving anywhere now. Does that mean Vinnie is going to jail? Oh hell to the no. Paul Walker gives Vinnie the keys to his car, because Paul Walker is a bad ass loose cannon who plays by his own set of rules.

Hey! Cut it out. Don’t laugh. I mean it, if you start then I’ll start, and we’re almost done. Let’s just try to get out of here with at least a shred of our dignity in tack.
So Vinnie gets in Paul Walker’s clown car and then The Big VD drives off into the sunset. The end.

Okay, there you have it, a movie just chock full of important life lessons, like unless you’re totally into archery, leather wrist straps are a bad idea. You shouldn’t make fun of people making questionable fashion choices (well to their faces), because they just might come back on their little motorcycles and machinegun you about a jillion times. If you’re a girl and your forehead shows that you posses a healthy sized brain, bangs should at least be considered, and if Vin Diesel tells you everything is going to be okay, you’re a goner. And not only that, but this is a movie that allows your brain to get some much needed rest. You should really give this one a look.