25th Anniversary: The Fast and the Furious

Bring back movies about subcultures. Audiences yearn for them.

The Fast and the Furious might be 25 years old, but my excitement for its rerelease makes it feel brand new. Watching it again, I’m struck by how much of its charm comes from the gritty, almost indie tone of the film, despite its $38 million budget. That number has multiplied by a staggering amount, but, before the cars started going to space and the franchise became increasingly preoccupied with its battle of the baldies, there was simply a love letter to street racing, brotherhood and, of course, family.

Jason Pargin once talked about how movies today aren’t as “greasy” as they were in the 1970s, but I think that stretches all the way into the early 2000s. There is something wonderfully grimy about The Fast and the Furious. We can see the sweat, the grease, and the grind. There’s a filmy layer over everything, a sepia-toned haze that makes Los Angeles feel like a world you could actually stumble into. The soundtrack only adds to the world-building; from the rock-adjacent electric notes of Limp Bizkit’s Rollin’ , Ja Rule’s Life Ain’t A Game to the desert-rave sounds of Race Wars, the audioscape becomes inseparable from the visuals, coming together to scream 2000s cinema in the best possible way. All this texture helps us buy into the subculture because it feels lived-in rather than manufactured, and that world is populated by a fantastic collection of characters and performers.

Despite their minor parts, Ja Rule and Noel Gugliemi hold their own next to Rick Yune and Vin Diesel because they all feel like they’re genuinely part of this ecosystem rather than actors dropped into it. The same goes for a fresh-faced Michelle Rodriguez, who kills it in her second ever onscreen role, and there is something wholly compelling seeing these actors before they become synonymous with the franchise.

At the centre of it all is a Whitewalker-blue-eyed Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker), an undercover cop investigating the world of LA street racers and infiltrating Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew. There’s a brilliant layer of anxiety running throughout the film as we fear Brian getting caught. We root for him despite his deception because we understand why he’s being drawn towards Dom’s world; he sees a side of humanity that can’t be extrapolated from a manila file.

And that is what makes the relationship between Brian and Dom work so beautifully. The film is ultimately about two men who should be on opposite sides of the law finding a kind of brotherhood. There’s a beautiful moment before the start of a race where all the racers and their crews gather, and it’s a melting pot of cultures, African Americans, Hispanics, and East Asians, people from different backgrounds and lived experiences all finding common ground through this one niche subculture. At the end of the race, Brian elatedly says to Dom, “I almost had you.” It’s humorous, sure, because he absolutely did not, but the smile it puts on your face mirrors Brian’s; he’s having the time of his life. That isn’t a cop undercover; it’s a man who has found his people.

It’s a travesty we didn’t get more of this world. The franchise begs for a spin-off, and I’m not talking about something as artificial as Hobbs & Shaw. Hector talks about going clean; where was the spin-off of his crew and their final race/score? What about the Trans, the Vietnamese gang on two wheels run by Rick Yune’s ruthless Jonny Tran? His character could have carried an entire film franchise, popping wheelies and breaking traditions on the streets of LA and Vietnam. Now that would have been legendary, but alas.

The Fast and the Furious is unironically a fantastic film, and it has aged surprisingly well.

It’s easy to look back at a 25-year-old franchise and focus on everything it lost and eventually became: the increasingly elaborate car tricks, Tyrese’s awful one-liners, and watching the Rock vs. Jason Statham vs. Vin Diesel and wondering when Bruce Willis will turn up. However, returning to where it started adds a fresh layer of anticipation for the (fingers-crossed) final film in the franchise currently slated for 2027. This anniversary rewatch also brought us back to basics, to a time when Brian O’Connor was going nos to nos with Dominic Toretto in a tale of trust, found-family and being unafraid to live life a quarter mile at a time.