3 Modern Action Films, Part 1: Fast & Furious (2009)

I went to see this film in the theatre the other day and, like I usually do when I've enjoyed a film, I'm trying to figure out why.

A massive percentage of action films are pointless. By pointless I mean: they have no moral message or personal lesson. I credit Casino Royale, Transformers, and The Bourne Series as being some of the better films of this type.

Basically, I stop and ask myself, "Why are people in general (including myself) attracted to these films?"

1) The plot, style, and editting aren't so inferior that you have no idea what you just saw.

Note failures like Quantum of Solace or Bangkok Dangerous. In a good action film these typical failures are either not present, or there are too few to distract you from the film.

2) The film allows/brings out the animal instinct in us. Survival, revenge, power/strength, adrenaline.

BECAUSE LET'S FACE IT: We like action, we just don't like it when the movie sucked so hard we couldn't enjoy it.

Beyond those bare factors of an action film, there is another:

3) The existence of a theme for the film. Is the film's theme strong? At the forefront? Relevant? Not split up into too many themes that we can't focus?

Some action films that have succeeded in the continuity and strength of theme are films like The Searchers, The Wild Bunch, Collateral and, I believe, Fast & Furious.

Fast & Furious caries the theme of walking not above the law, but outside it. The power of knowing that out of sheer masculinity you can walk into a room and own it. Power and control. Having the magic touch of being better than luck itself. KNOWING you're just that good at it. Riding like the gods, if you will. The theme is strong, relevant, and continuous.

And the film succeeds on the first two points. The action is good and the plot and characters are conceivable and intact. Apparently the editor was NOT on crack. And the adrenaline is pure when it's supposed to be.

I submit it's an unusually good action flick on those three accounts and if the theme appeals to you personally, you should see it.

NOTE: There is also another type of action film that succeeds at 1, 2, 3, AND has a message. Bullit and The First Deadly Sin are the only two ones that I can think of at the moment.



Postlude:

Fast & Furious has one of the best endings I've seen in quite a time. Perhaps THE best ending for an action flick that I can recall. (Casino Royale would be in the competition.)

Vin Diesel just put himself in the company of the Jason Statham and Daniel Craig.

The film was directed by Justin Lin who also did a superb job directing the original cautionary tale titled, Better Luck Tomorrow... I should rewatch that and review it at a later date...