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A road movie that's too slow and too tedious

By A. O. SCOTT
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Friday, Jun 13, 2003, Page 20

Brian O'Conner is back on the streets. PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL

2 Fast 2 Furious, a new seatbelt-awareness film that opens nationwide today, features two very fine and touching performances, both of them by cars.

Indeed, the movie, directed by John Singleton from a script by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, can be seen as something of a love story, in which a pair of tricked-out Mitsubishis, a cute purple Spider convertible and a sinewy yellow Evolution carry out a high-speed courtship as they dart and frolic along the highways of South Florida.

Then, at what should be their moment of consummation, these two frisky vehicles are replaced by a pair of domestic hotrods (an orange Dodge and a blue Chevy), one of which crashes onto the deck of a yacht.

Unfortunately, all of these supremely expressive vehicles come equipped with drivers, principally a pair of crash-test dummies played by Paul Walker and Tyrese, whose low-gear dialogue makes the whine of engines sound like the highest poetry.

To make a dumb story short, the two of them, boyhood friends who have grown up to be an ex-cop (Mr. Walker) and an ex-con (Tyrese), go undercover to help a sexy customs agent (Eva Mendes) snare a drug kingpin (Cole Hauser).

Racy women feature in 2 Fast 2 Furious. PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL

The kingpin is eager to hire street racers to ferry his ill-gotten gains from one place to another, perhaps because brightly painted flame-shooting cars traveling at double the speed limit are unlikely to attract the attention of law enforcement. He might have done better with Buick-driving retirees, or carrier pigeons, but that would have been a different movie.

Roman Pearce and Brian O'Conner. PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL

This one is a sequel to The Fast and The Furious, the success of which helped propel Vin Diesel to stardom. Diesel and Rob Cohen, who directed the first movie, have moved on to the XXX franchise, leaving their successors choking on fumes.

2 Fast 2 Furious is among the most lethargic action movies I have ever seen: when Walker and Tyrese are not driving, it might as well be called 2 Slow 2 Tedious, since the script shows all the energy and sophistication of an old episode of TJ Hooker.

Film Notes 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS Directed by: John Singleton Starring: Paul Walker (Brian O'Connor), Tyrese (Roman Pearce), Eva Mendes (Monica Fuentes), Cole Hauser (Carter Verone), Chris (Ludacris) Bridges (Tej), James Remar (Agent Markham) and Devon Aoki (Suki) Running time: 100 minutes Taiwan Release: Today

But even the racing and chasing, which is what really matters in a picture like this, is clumsy and lame, about as viscerally exciting as the masterworks of 8mm instructional cinema I was forced to watch in driver ed class back in high school.

The basic editing scheme suggests a how-to video on manual shifting techniques. Step one: depress the clutch. Step two: yank the gearshift. Step three: grimace and shout in the ethnic slang idiom of your choice. Repeat as necessary until you crash into something or find it advisable to activate the nitrogen-powered booster rockets, now available from your dealer as part of the special doofus hotrod sport package.

Singleton, whose limitations as an action director were also on display in the remake of Shaft,at least seems to respect the beauty of cars, and also, though respect may be precisely the wrong word, that of women.

Mendes and Devon Aoki have some lines to say, and Aoki is even permitted to drive. But mostly the women, like the cars, are around to fuel adolescent male fantasies and are similarly ogled, at leeringly low angles, by the camera, like a Pirelli calendar spread, all pose and no action.
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