Loading ...Film Review: 3 Fast 3 Furious
By Evan ~ August 4th, 2007. Filed under: review.
Flat broke, full-up on Astro Burger, mildly sedated, and with nowhere in particular to go, what else can one do on a Friday night but sink into a comfortable chair and enjoy a nice feature length film? I found myself in this very position last evening. After a slightly uncomfortable experience at the previously mentioned hamburger stand (where it was suddenly realized no one had any money to pay for the food), and a rousing (boring) game of chess at Psychobabble, it was decided that the best way to usher in the weekend would be to bathe in the television’s warm glowing warming glow. The long and arduous search for a movie that perfectly fit our mood threatened to thwart a potentially record-breaking lax night. Just then, out of the fog, it appeared. A moonlight-dappled DVD-r with a sloppily handwritten label. Upon first noticing the inscription, a surge of heat accompanied the sensation of blood rushing to my head. My pulse quickened. Like the initial rush that greets a smack addict following the introduction of drug to vein, euphoria engulfed me. I felt like I was being nestled into God’s ample bosom, if God was a chick and had a set of massive cans. Could this be the answer to the eternal question? Had we found the holy grail? On both counts, the answer was a resounding, “Yes.”
What genre-defining cinematic opus could I possibly be describing? Why, I’m talking about The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift.
The film (herein referred to as 3 Fast 3 Furious) is perhaps the worst I’ve ever seen in my entire life — and that’s saying something. I’m pretty sure my retarded elementary school classmate who lived around the corner from me could have created a more convincing story than that of writer Chris Morgan, who for all I know is a functionally retarded man-child leading a barely-meaningful life somewhere in southern California. I imagine he’s the type of retard who people pass on the street and don’t immediately recognize as being retarded, so they disregard his disheveled appearance and inability to string together a complete sentence, and naively pay him boatloads of money to pen screenplays because he’s “different”.
What kind of plot befits a man of Morgan’s stature? Try to wrap your head around this Lynch-ian creation. Sean is a troubled childhood with something of a “lead foot.” His immature street racing habits (”If I win, I get your girlfriend”) get arrested, and he is saved from jail–get this–only if he consents to banishment in the land of the rising sun. You wouldn’t imagine what happens once he arrives in Japan. He immediately finds a gang of street racers! Only this time, Sean’s actions could find him in real trouble. I’m not talking about exile to a place worse than Japan, I’m talking about death at the hands of the Yakuza!
That’s right, Sean’s mortal racing enemy (named DK, which stands for “Drift King”) is in the Yakuza! Or, isn’t he? It’s hard to tell. The film kind of vacillates on his involvement. In one scene, Sean’s friend Han states that DK is just a punk whose uncle is Yakuza, but later in the film both DK and Han are working for the Yakuza. It’s more than just a little confusing.
Grab a pen Takashi Miike, because director Justin Lin knows how to take his audience on an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride through, uh…claustrophobic parking garages, oh, and down one steep hill! 3 Fast 3 Furious combines the best elements of street racing movies and Yakuza films, delivering scene-after-scene of increasingly intense action. There’s also a love story, I think. I know there’s a Japanese-Australian girl who sometimes speaks with an English accent, and supposedly grew up with DK and his family, but I don’t remember if we’re ever told whether or not she’s actually dating DK. The dialogue…well, it’s not very good. Pretty much every conversation sounds like the actors are reading Instant Messenger chat transcripts. Just when you feel like you’re struggling to resuscitate your last brain cell, a Han pulls Sean aside at a party and delivers a series of existential one-liners riddled in cliche. His insightful comments, and the force of their blows, is enough to make you want to climb to the roof of your apartment building, swallow a handful of sleeping pills, chase it with a handle of whisky, slit your writs and dive off into oncoming traffic.
“You see those people down there? They’re controlled by fear,” Han states. “Life is simple, you make choices and you don’t look back.” Would you believe that the same genius who wrote this line, in the very next scene, gives Han yet another brilliant and unique line? As if the pedestrian discourse can’t get any worse, we have to hear Han inform Sean that, “Who you choose to be around you lets you know who you are.” Later, when Han and Sean are cruising the streets of Tokyo, talking about life and racing, Han states that a person should never enter a race without meaning. As he says this, another car accelerates past them, and the pair giddily decide to race it at breakneck speed.
3 Fast 3 Furious is a film littered with inanity. Each side-story (I can’t say there’s really any discernible plot) is stupider than the last. The advice offered by characters is derivative. Attempts at foreshadowing manage to spoil each ensuing scene. Characters deliver hollow, superficial thoughts with Marlon Brando-like gravity. I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard since Antitrust. Ten stars!
