The Fast & Furious franchise has changed a lot over the years, and looking back on the original movie today, it’s shocking just how many harsh realities viewers must face. As the relatively grounded story of an undercover cop infiltrating a low-level street racing gang, The Fast and the Furious was an unlikely candidate for a billion-dollar franchise. However, this story of the LAPD officer Brian O’Conner and the crew leader Dominic Torretto opened the door for several sequels, spin-offs, and extended media.
The Fast and the Furious was released nearly a quarter of a century ago, and it’s clear just how much it was a product of its time, as its music, style, and characters acted as a fascinating time capsule into their era. As a classic release whose fanbase has only grown over the years, the Fast & Furious franchise has strayed massively away from its origins in many ways, yet the first film also laid the groundwork for all that was to follow. There’s a lot to love about The Fast and the Furious, but there are some harsh truths we must consider.
10
The Stakes Are Shockingly Low
Things Got Far More Intense In Later Years
As the very first installment in the Fast & Furious franchise, The Fast and the Furious laid the groundwork for everything that came after it. While this made it an essential entry in the long-running series and the first time we meet icons like Brian O’Conner and Dominic Torreto, it also meant the stakes were shockingly low when compared to later movies. In The Fast and the Furious, you’ll find no cars being launched into space or over-the-top stunts that defy the laws of physics.
Instead, The Fast and the Furious told a surprisingly grounded undercover cop story set in the world of street racing. While this may sound like a positive to those who think the franchise lost its way over the years, the harsh truth was that rewatching The Fast and the Furious, everything just came across as low-stakes and almost quaint. With a plot that starts with Dom’s crew hijacking electrical goods, the DVD bootlegging of The Fast and the Furious was a far cry from the world-threatening cyber weapons of later years.
9
The Dialogue Is Often Cringeworthy
Dom Has Some Questionable Quotes
Revisiting The Fast and the Furious more than two decades later, it’s striking just how intentionally hilarious and cringeworthy a lot of the dialogue is. While Dom’s assertions that “I live my life a quarter mile at a time” may have sounded cool and edgy at the time, today they feel laughably ridiculous. There’s a seriousness to the way the street racing lifestyle is presented in this Rob Cohen movie that lacked the tongue-in-cheek self-awareness of later releases.
The way that Brian O’Conner forces himself to use street lingo to ingratiate himself with Dom’s crew also feels forced and cheesy. Part of the reason it’s so fun to go back and watch different installments in the Fast & Furious franchise is because they are a snapshot into the era out of which they were produced, and it’s just hilarious to see the cringeworthy ways Brian, Dom, and the rest of the crew speak and act throughout the film.
8
Street Racing Feels Like An Outdated Fad
It Was Definitely A Product Of Its Time
Back when The Fast and the Furious was first released, street racing was at the height of its popularity. As a film inspired by Ken Li’s Vibe article “Racer X,” The Fast and the Furious was produced in the wake of genuine illegal street racing in New York City, and it was not an outrageous concept to make a movie about a cop trying to infiltrate one of these gangs. While this made The Fast and the Furious feel relevant at the time, looking back today, the way the crews talk about street racing highlights it as an outdated fad.
The popularity of street racing in The Fast and the Furious was just one of the many ways the film was frozen in time, as even the technology they used to modify their cars felt laughably outdated. Even the grand street racing prize in The Fast and the Furious felt like a relic from a bygone era as racers sought to win a trunk full of Panasonic DVD players. While this may have been on the cutting edge in 2001, rewatching the film nearly a quarter of a century later, it’s clear just how much times have changed.
7
The Soundtrack Screams 2001 (And Not In A Good Way)
This OST Boasts An Eclectic Mix Of Genres
The Fast & Furious movies have always acted as a time capsule into the era out of which they were produced, and nowhere was this clearer than in the movies’ soundtracks. The Fast and the Furious soundtrack was an unusual mishmash of everything popular back in 2001, and taking a glance at the track listing, it’s shocking just how irrelevant most of its contributors have become. With an off-putting blend of hip-hop, rap, nu metal, and post-grunge, the songs on The Fast and the Furious felt like a bunch of different styles at the wall just to see what would stick.
With music from artists and bands like DMX, Faith Evans, Limp Bizkit, Nate Dogg, and R. Kelly, not everything on The Fast and the Furious soundtrack has aged well. However, it was also an enjoyable glimpse into the early 2000s music scene, and the OST was enough of a hit to go platinum in the United States and Canada.
6
The Visual Effects Look Dated Today
The Nitrous Sequence Looks Laughably Dated
At the time of its release, The Fast and the Furious was a high-octane, adrenaline-fueled release that represented the cutting edge of visual effects in 2001. However, the CGI capabilities of 2001 were practically prehistoric when compared to what it’s possible to depict on screen today. The most jarring example of poor visual effects came through the representation of nitrous oxide to speed up the cars, a technique that has become a cornerstone of the franchise in the years since.
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Rather than look like an extraordinary display of racing skills and technical brilliance, the use of nitrous oxide in The Fast and the Furious was just a haze of CGI spectacle of blurred lights and disorienting visuals. While this was meant to convey speed, modern audiences have been so accustomed to CGI in the years since that it looks almost cartoonish and hurts the suspension of disbelief needed to enjoy mindless action franchises like the Fast series.
5
The Characters Haven’t Been Fully Developed
Brian And Dom Would Become Far More Compelling In Later Installments
Since the very beginning, Dominic Toretto has always thought of his crew as a kind of found family, and this was a theme that ran throughout the entire Fast & Furious franchise. However, what’s most striking when going back and rewatching the original movie is just how underdeveloped all the characters were. While Dom continually waxed lyrical about the importance of his crew, everything happened so quickly that we didn’t have a lot of time to get to know the various characters who were introduced.
This was something that could only be achieved with time, and throughout the different sequels and spin-off movies, we were able to get to understand the characters’ motivations and beliefs a lot better. Looking back on how Dom and Brian were presented in the first movie, the foundations were laid for their strong relationship moving forward, but it also felt quite hollow when compared to their later adventures.
4
Brian’s Police Work Makes No Sense
The Entire Premise Of The Film Was Shaky
On paper, the idea of Brian O’Conner going undercover to infiltrate an illegal street racing crew makes sense. However, the way this story is executed and the means through which he carries out his police work make little to no sense. While Brian’s goal was to uncover Dom’s crew and put them away for illegal hijacking and shady bootlegging practices, from a procedural point of view, the way Brian carried out his work was frankly a total mess.
Even if we ignore how Brian somehow managed to convince the LAPD and the FBI that the best way to bring down a crew of street racers was to win races, how he suddenly became an expert driver capable of racing against the best of the best was quickly skirted over. The way that Brian operates as a lone entity with almost no surveillance from his superiors, only to become immediately emotionally compromised, also showcases him as a poor officer of the law.
3
Women Are Presented As Objects To Be Won
The Fast And The Furious’s Depiction Of Women Is Outdated
Looking back on The Fast and the Furious through a modern lens, it’s clear that this franchise’s early depiction of women left a lot to be desired. With the majority of females being simple background decoration, largely presented as prizes to be won by talented street racers, almost every woman shown on screen was depicted as a motivator for the male characters rather than being fully realized characters in their own right.
The most prominently featured woman in The Fast and the Furious was Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster), a character who functions primarily as Brian’s love interest, whose representation was mostly defined by the men around her. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) also had great potential that was only properly explored in later movies, and in the first film, she was simply an accessory to Dom with little screen time.
2
Brian’s Street Cred Came Too Quick
From Cop To Crook In Just A Few Days
The entire premise of The Fast and the Furious rests on the idea that Brian O’Conner can infiltrate a street racing gang and gain their trust. For him to pull this off, Brian must first prove himself a capable racer and build up the necessary street cred to be accepted into Dom’s crew. Not only is Brian able to quickly achieve this seemingly insurmountable task, but he does so over the course of a matter of days.
While fully enjoying The Fast and the Furious was always going to require audiences to suspend their disbelief and just allow its highly implausible story to unfold, Brian’s transition from undercover cop to street racing expert was all just a little bit too convenient. While it’s true that Brian’s backstory involved a driving accident that resulted in a five-car pile-up, there’s nothing about his origin story that accounts for his exceptional street racing talents.
1
It Feels Like A Totally Different Franchise From The Latest Movies
The Franchise Looks Nothing Like Its Humble Origins Today
The most jarring thing about going back and rewatching The Fast and the Furious was noticing just how much the franchise has changed over the years. What began as a relatively grounded street racing story has turned into a billion-dollar franchise whose over-the-top stunts and visuals rival those of Marvel superhero movies. However, the difference between The Fast and the Furious and the tenth movie, Fast X, was so extreme that it’s hard to believe that one grew out of the other.
The Fast and the Furious dealt with low-level crime among underground gangs in Los Angeles, but today the series is known for world-threatening showdowns against cyber terrorists intent on enacting global warfare. With characters who have been Flanderized beyond all recognition, the changes occurred because each new movie attempted to outdo the previous one, and there was nowhere else for the writers to go but to embrace the ridiculousness of it all. While it all started with The Fast and the Furious, nobody could have predicted where the franchise would end up today.
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