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A guilty pleasure with excess horsepower, The Fast and the Furious efficiently combines time-honoured 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 theatre 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 super-blown 69 Charger proves that Detroit muscle never goes out of style. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

On the DVD: Appropriately bulging with macho extra features, this disc is introduced with a stirring lack of irony by a Public Service Announcement exhorting viewers not to take proceedings too seriously! The meat of the many special features are found in deconstructions of several special effects sequences, with multiple camera-angle views and a breakdown of the process by which composite shots are achieved from separate plates. There are also eight deleted or extended scenes with optional directorial commentary. The main feature commentary is surprisingly in-depth and absorbing, as Rob Cohen talks about every aspect of his up-to-date "Western with rice rockets". Other features include music videos (one of which has its lyrics censored), a standard 18-minute "making-of" featurette and, fascinatingly, a short five-minute peek at the editing process as the director and film editor strive to cut a violent scene and thereby guarantee that all-important PG-13 rating (so that young kids who can't drive will be able to watch the movie and learn about speed, the director says with a straight face). And with a choice of explosive Dolby 5.1 or DTS you, and your long-suffering neighbours, will feel like you're right in the midst of the action. --Mark Walker

Release Date: Feb 11, 2002
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