Fast & Furious

For the fourth outing, Fast & Furious, they have brought back much of the cast of the original film and ditched the word 'the'. Other than that, it's pretty much business as usual. That's not to say it's not suitably entertaining, because it has plenty of action and excitement to satisfy the fans, but at the same time it's a point where the series was ripe for a little reinvention. It's also the point in the series where plausibility takes a permanent back seat and the timeline of events starts to get a little muddled.

The film opens with Dom (played by Vin Diesel) and his girlfriend Letty (played by Michelle Rodriguez), along with Han (played by Sung Kang, who I remember being thrilled seeing in this one, considering his character didn't survive to the end of Tokyo Drift), and assorted others back up to their Semi-Truck thieving ways. This time, the prize is tanker truck train (one truck pulling a string of several tanker trailers) loaded with gasoline. Initially, the plan actually works but soon the truck driver gets wise and the heist goes south with the truck crashing and exploding. That night, Dom gets word that the cops are on to him and not wanting to take Letty down with him, leaves her with a couple stacks of cash and splits in the middle of the night. 

We then jump ahead some time later as we catch up with Brian O'Connor (played by Paul Walker), who is now a FBI agent on the trail of a notorious drug kingpin named Arturo Braga (played by John Ortiz). Meanwhile, Dom gets a call from Mia (played by Jordana Brewster) informing him that Letty has been murdered after getting in a serious car accident. Heartbroken, Dom returns to the United States to seek justice for Letty's murder. This puts him on a collision course with his old friend Brian, made all the worse when he finds out Letty was an informant for him by infiltrating Braga's gang. After settling their differences, Brian and Dom team up to take down Braga and take out Letty's killer.

This entry in the franchise was the first entry that showed the series was trying to evolve away from being a series about illegal street racing, and instead working much more as a revenge thriller. The aspect of them infiltrating a drug running operation is very similar to 2 Fast 2 Furious and in that respect the series is still showing it's wear. The plot aspect of Dom avenging Letty's murder adds a certain dramatic weight that helps us to overlook the recycled plot. 

There are a few things that still stick out as ludicrous, even for this franchise. Chief among them is Brian once again working in Law Enforcement. After letting Dom go free at the end of the first film, I'm pretty confident he would never work in the field again as well as all the stunts he pulled in the second film. But then again, this franchise has been built on such absurdity. It's still a plot point that requires more suspension of disbelief than I think even I am capable of. Also the idea of muscle head Dom acting as a forensic detective when he investigates Letty's crime scene also pushes the strains of credibility.

Still, the film is entertaining with solid direction from returning director Justin Lin and the film does a good job of reuniting the the original characters and pairing them with some solid action sequences (even if Lin relies on some seriously sub-par CGI at times). It's not the best of the bunch by far with both the fifth and sixth films being more solid entries, but it's not the worst either.