Fast & Furious

I never got around to seeing the first movie in this series, the one from 2001 that has definitive articles but no ampersand in the title, but I'm sure I will, simply because of the fact that I'm a big Vin Diesel fan. I've liked every one of the movies I've seen him in, even last year's Babylon A.D., which was panned and even renounced by its director. I thought xXx (2002) was head and shoulders above both of the Daniel Craig Bond movies.

Diesel has a limited range as a actor, to be sure, but within that range, he is impeccable. In particular, he tends to play heroes that are extremely classical, even if the rest of the characters around him aren't.

There is a scene in Fast & Furious that really brings this to mind. Early on, while he is snooping around for bad guys, he comes around a vintage Ford Torino (oddly green, just like the one in the recent Clint Eastwood movie). One of the bad guy's sexy babes intercepts him and they engage in conversation. Clearly she is turned on by him, and attempts to seduce him, basically throwing herself at him.

But he will have none of it. He won't even let her kiss him on the lips. He's fixated on the car, and what it means in relation to his quest to find justice.

That is the essence of the classical hero---he is not swayed by the women who attempt to pull him off his mission. This is opposed to the postmodern man, who is presumed to value getting laid by hot babes above all other things in life. What harm would it be, just to boink the chick and go on with his task?. In classical terms, this gets you killed.

Driving in my own car today, thinking about this point, it occurred to me that we accept Diesel as classical in this regard because he is so damn sexy that we assume he could have any woman he wanted. Thus, according to this reasoning, he can afford to pass up hot babes.

Well, at least we still get to have classical characters. In the old days, every male hero would have been expected to pass this test.

One aspect of this movie I enjoyed was that the cybernetic technology was not superfantastic and all-seeing. It's almost standard in movies lately that the FBI has big brother surveillance on every one at all times. We've been trained to think that it's OK and normal for the Federal State to be so afraid of its citizens like this.

Instead, in this movie, even though the bad guys have ultrasophisticated voice-driven GPS to guide their street racers, the feds use technology that is slightly behind the times. The cameras at the Mexican border have gaps, we are told. Moreover, at a crucial moment in the story, the FBI winds up arresting the wrong guy because a fax machine is too slow in printing out a photograph. I loved it!

The story was fairly entertaining, with some innovative types of car chases for nice eye candy. The ending scene in the courtroom in surprisingly classical in the dispensing of justice.

I enjoyed nearly the entire movie, except for when two women snuck in during the middle of the movie and talked at full volume about six rows behind me. I had been the only one in the theater, and it was really distracting, even during the loud scenes. Finally I couldn't take it anymore, so I walked up slowly to them. I thought they were teenagers. Turns out they were at least in their late twenties, maybe thirties. I spoke in a low deep voice, politely asking them if they wouldn't mind talking a little less loud. Like chastised little girls, they said OK. I felt like a high school principal talking to some bratty tenth graders. Clearly some authority issues there.

All was mostly fine, even after their three little daughters came scampering in the theater, about fifteen minutes later, probably fresh from Hannah Montana: the Movie, and just in time for some full frontal female nudity (in a painting on screen). I don't mind this sneaking in. I'm not there to police the theater or enforce morality. But if you're not going to pay for a ticket, at least shut the fuck up.

UPDATE: As if to prove my point of him being the classical man of our day, Diesel is directing and starring in the title role of an upcoming movie about Hannibal the Carthaginian general slated for release in 2011. I can hardly wait!