The Fast and the Furious, Not exactly classic

The Fast and the Furious. Is there a collection of words that brings more shame upon people who like cars? Still, when Vin Diesel's defining performance hit the big screen in 2001, Japanese performance car fans and chavs finally had something to call their own. Its script existed for the same reason the articles exist in Playboy - an excuse to gawp in amazement at something awesome, but something you still know is plain wrong. Finally, Tesco car park doughnutters had a collection of cars upon which to model their own.

The plot has something to do with fighting or something. Whatever. It's not that interesting, is it? Most people agree it ripped off Point Break for its script anyway. The cars, on the other hand, are interesting, so let's look at them instead. Despite being famed for its glorification of the Japanese tuning scene (the film is actually based on a magazine article called Racer X by Ken Li), there are a plethora of European and American performance cars on display, all equipped with enough nitrous oxide to bend light.

Japanese cars include a trio of modded Honda Civic rice rockets, a Toyota Supra, an R33 Nissan Skyline GT-R and a Honda S2000 - all pimped to within mistimed gear change of blowing up their engines, and all wearing more neon paint than a Miami disco circa 1985. But, for the snobs, there's a Ferrari F355 Spider (which gets burned in a race with a Supra), and America is represented by a Ford F-150 Lightning and a Dodge Charger.

The Fast and the Furious epitomises 'so bad it's good' film making, and no self-certified car nut can be genuine without seeing it at least once. It's purity of purpose is astonishing, right down to an amazing sequence showing the inner workings of a gearbox during a drag race. TFATF was so bad, in fact, that it grossed $207,283,925 in total. Yes, you read that right.

Mark Nichol

Tuesday November 18