2 Fast 2 Furious

2 Fast 2 Furious

Although John Singleton’s “2 Fast 2 Furious” is filled with outrageous absurdities that cannot go unnoticed, it still manages to have a story. It starts with a climactic scene in which A Miami drug lord hires two street racers to pick up bags full of money from his contacts in North Beach and deliver it to him at the Keys by saying “You make it, I’ll personally hand you $100 Gs at the finish line.” For 10 Gs I would rent a van from the Aventura mall and do it myself.

But this was not an ordinary delivery. Drivers were expected to drive as fast as 100 miles per hour or even faster than jet engines taking off; surely this would catch the attention of law enforcers therefore he needed a corrupt cop (whose rat he encouraged by telling him that the rat will eat its way into his intestines) to arrange for a “window” of about 15 minutes.

This guy must be going through too much for nothing, right? Though rattish sounding, they do chase them but they knew this beforehand and drove their cars into one enormous garage after which there were dozens or hundreds of other super charged vehicles which emerged out of the garage confusing them with high-speed traffic jam. And some monster trucks crush lots and lots of squad cars first. The monsters are coddled like babies by their owners who do not think twice before using them to ram police cars just because somebody asked nicely (or rather did not ask at all).

Is that what it looks like? I am not complaining here people! I’m smiling., because “2 Fast 2 Furious” is a buddy movie mixed with video game, bad cop-good cop film, Miami drug lord film, chase film and a comedy show. It doesn’t know anything but has been made skillfully and stylishly; oh my gosh is this thing fast?

How much more video game-like can you wish it was? The two drivers are called Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) and Roman Pearce (Tyrese). As they rocket through the city streets at 20% of the speed of sound, they talk. They cannot hear each other, but it does not matter because their speech is exactly the kind that avatars use in video games. I jotted down some examples: “Let’s see what this thing can do!”

“Watch this, bro!” “Let’s see if you still got it, Brian!” “How you like them apples!?” Walker had appeared in the original The Fast and the Furious film (2001), which made a star out of Vin Diesel. Not being in this story about cops infiltrating his car gang to bust a drug cartel, Diesel chose instead to make A Man Apart as a cop who takes on the drug cartel. Strangely enough F&F2 is better.

Walker’s co-star here is Tyrese, or Tyrese Gibson who was great in Singleton’s Baby Boy (2001) but now he injects energy and charisma into 2 Fast 2 Furious. He’s an angry version of Vin Diesel it works for him. In either movie Walker gets first billing and though pleasant, he doesn’t have much presence kind of Don Johnson lite.

It stars other key characters including Cole Hauser who plays Carter Verone the drug kingpin whose Colombian parents didn’t name him after Jimmy, he’s too old for that but maybe Mother Maybelle; plus Eva Mendes as Monica Fuentes, a sexy cop who looks just like the girl next door. She was undercover with Verone for nine months before becoming his bed partner or friend.

And they were promised by Verone that their records would be expunged if the mission succeeded. However, before they can do this they have to get their jobs on track. He then gathers several teams of drivers and tells them he left a package in his red Ferrari at an auto pound 20 miles from here. “First team back with it gets to work with me.”

And so a high-speed race starts along Route 95 during which one car is crushed under the wheels of a truck, several more crash and various racers and presumably some innocent people die too. Then O’Connor and Pearce arrive back with the package. But as they drive back down these lanes again there isn’t even any trace of the destruction caused opposite lanes; it’s probably for best considering the speed at which we’re traveling if nothing else because we don’t want to pass an accident scene.

All these chases involve an apparently infinite number of squad cars in South Florida. There is also a traffic jam above featuring police and news helicopters. This is where one reporter hears something loud, looks up briefly saying “What was that?” but we never find out what happened because perhaps this movie goes too fast and furious to stop for helicopter crash moments.

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