A Rapid Week of Rage: 2 Fast 2 Furious

To celebrate the release of Furious 7 this Easter Sunday, each night, I’ll watch one Fast & Furious movie and report on my findings. Join me as I follow our valiant illegal drag-racers as they tokyo drift across the various speed bumps and barricades life throws at them. Today, we cover the first sequel, in which only of the original film’s stars — Paul Walker — returned, 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), which was (to my astonishment) directed by John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood, Poetic Justice)!

What happens:

As 2 Fast 2 Furious opens, a pickup truck filled with what appear to be extras from a Vengaboys video are positioning fake ‘road closed’ signs, so as to block off the streets of Miami for an illegal street race. (I assume, in response to criticism that the first film inspired an increase in dangerous, sometimes deadly street racing, the producers of 2 Fast 2 Furious wanted to make the sequel all about safety.) We’re then introduced Tej (played by Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, sporting an impressive afro), “the man to know in Miami,” the master of ceremonies over the evening’s race. However, there are only three racers in attendance (all of whose fashions match their cars’ paint jobs): Slap Jack (Michael Ealy), the amazingly named Orange Julius (Amaury Nolasco), and Suki (Devon Aoki). They need a fourth racer, so Tej calls Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) – no longer a cop due to his actions in the first movie, and no longer residing in Los Angeles – to see if he wants to make some money.

Brian arrives and first thing he does is raise the stakes, like a dick, saying he wants to race for more money. Orange Julius suggests $3,500. (Since $2,000 was the standard in the first film, this seems an overt message to the audience: shit just got real.) Just as the race is about to start, Brian spots a beautiful woman in the crowd (played by Eva Mendes) and is momentarily distracted. Tej officiates the race – giving him the opportunity to yell “Back up! Back up!” a hundred times (just like in the song) – and cryptically says he has something special planned. The race begins and Slap Jack takes the immediate lead, not letting Brian pass him. It looks grim for our hero, but the race isn’t over yet. Tej has rigged a drawbridge to partially raise just before the finish line. Brian uses both his nitrous tanks at the same time and rockets over Slap Jack while jumping the bridge. Slap Jack loses control and crashes into a Pepsi billboard. Meanwhile, Suki and Orange Julius have been having their own little battle, which is decided with Orange Julius hesitates and turns off before jumping the bridge.

The victory celebrations are short-lived, because the 5-0 appear on the scene, sending all the street racers scrambling. A police officer stationed by the side of the road hits Brian’s car with some kind of sci-fi electromagnetic pulse harpoon, which causes his car to stall. They arrest him and bring him into the station. While grilling the street racer, they realize he used to be L.A.P.D. An FBI agent, Atkins (Thom Barry), who is the only other returning character from The Fast and the Furious, shows up at the station and takes O’Conner into his custody. They’ve picked up O’Conner to do another undercover job for the FBI. See, there’s a cartel boss, Carter Verone (Cole Hauser) operating out of Miami, and he’s looking for new wheelmen. The FBI used an undercover customs agent, Monica Fuentes (Eva Mendes), to infiltrate his organization, but also scope out some good Miami-based drivers who can get close to Verone and tip the FBI off to catch him in the act of some illegal activity. They force Brian to be that driver.

The lead agents on this operation are Atkins and Markham, who fall into pretty traditional good cop / bad cop roles (which is a switch, as Atkins was definitely the bad cop in the first movie). They want to pair O’Conner with an agent, Dunn, who will be his other driver. But Brian refuses, proving Dunn knows about as much about cars as, say, I do. Brian will only trust a former friend he grew up with in Barstow: Roman Pearce.

Roman Pearce (actor, model, and John Singleton muse, Tyrese Gibson) has been working demolition derbies in Barstow, and that’s where Atkins and O’Conner find him. Pearce was in prison for three years and is currently under house arrest, with an anklet that doesn’t allow him to move more than 100 yards from his home (a trailer parked next to the derby course). However, Roman isn’t happy to see his old friend, Brian. He takes a swing at him and soon the two guys are fighting in the dirt. Roman has a little problem with police officers (or “pigs,” as he likes to call them), and blames Brian (seemingly just because he was also a police officer) for his three-year-stint in jail. Atkins offers Roman a deal: be the other driver in this investigation and the FBI will remove his anklet and clear this record.

Back in Miami, Brian and Roman are introduced to Monica Fuentes, who sets them up with their sweet Easter-coloured rides. (Roman takes dibs on the purple convertible with the vanity ‘H8TR’ licence plate.) While driving to Verone’s compound, Brian both creeps out and hits on Monica by staring at her intensely while driving really, pretty fast. I guess this must be a pretty effective move, because Roman is outraged he uses it: “He did the stare and drive?! He got that from me!” Once at Verone’s, the cartel boss tells them he needs a team of two drivers, and he’s set up a bit of an audition. His Ferrari was impounded and there’s a valuable package inside. The first duo of drivers to retrieve it from the car and return it to him will be his new drivers.

And so, a mini It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World ensues, with the drivers racing each other to get to an impound lot in Little Haiti. A driver, attempting to follow Brian and Roman through the narrow space between two eighteen-wheelers, is viciously crushed under a truck’s wheels, causing untold havoc on the highway behind them. Once they find the impound lot and car (Brian and Roman are first to arrive, ‘natch), Roman must remove his shirt (obvi) to protect his fist while punching through the car’s window. Only one problem: Agent Markham, who has GPS tracking in Brian and Romans’ cars, assumed they were running away, so he shows up with some cops in the impound lot, and Roman opens fire on them. Brian and Roman escape and return to Verone with his package.

When the drivers return, it becomes clear that Fuentes is working undercover as Verone’s lover. (Is that something customs agents are expected to do?) Over a poolside meal, Verone opens the package (it was only a cigar inside!) to show his drivers it was merely a test. But if they succeed in their first job, $100,000 is theirs. This job involves driving some laundered money stored at a Verone property to an airstrip, to get it out of the country and to Cuba. Roman, whose two key personality traits are (1) he has trouble with authority, and (2) he likes eating, gets cocky and requests $100,000 each. He also attempts to pocket Verone’s cigar-cutter, which doesn’t endear him to his new boss. As they leave Verone’s compound, Brian quarrels with Roman over his attitude. He fears Roman’s cavalier approach will get them killed. Roman fights back, suggesting that Brian has become smitten with Monica Fuentes, and that will get them killed sooner: “You always getting’ in trouble over a female, Brian!”

Their enmity momentarily subsided, Brian introduces Roman to his Miami friends, hoping Roman can stay with Tej. Tej is busy overseeing some jet ski races (he doesn’t care if the racing is on land or sea; he’s got the need for speed). Tej reveals he used to race himself until a bad crash. Suki is revealed as a car designer (“That’s some artistic shit!”), and the audience meets Jimmy, a mechanic who informs Brian and Roman their cars are being tracked with GPS. Brian also notices they’ve been tailed by two of Verone’s goons (Roberto and Enrique), so Roman, pretending to be a street windshield washer, sprays their car with gasoline and lights their windshield on fire. (Classic Roman.)

When Brian and Roman report to the feds, Markham immediately flips out on them for opening fire on him. Brian shoots back that Markham, in his impatience, could have ruined the entire operation. Roman also worries that Monica has been compromised, a comment that leads Markham to needle Brian about how he should know all about that, as a former undercover cop who got too close to his mark. And so, Roman learns about Brian’s past relationship with Dominic Toretto (who is never actually mentioned by name in this movie, as if he were Voldemort).

The operation, for reasons I don’t quite recall, requires two more cars, so Brian and Roman decide to challenge two of the other driver also-rans to a tag-team street race, with the help of Tej and Suki. The winners will take the losers’ keys. The other drivers, whom Roman has nicknamed ‘Fonzie’ and ‘Fabio’ (but look more like a young Chaz Palmnteri and Chris Sheppard), arrive in their American muscle cars; they’re in it to win it. Despite a slow start by Roman, Brian catches up in the second wave of the race by playing chicken with Fonzie, then using his NOS to win by a nose.

Upon Verone’s invitation, Brian and Roman arrive at his club and quickly meet up with Monica Fuentes. While Roman’s off at the bar, Brian starts making eyes at Monica. (Has he totally forgotten about Mia Toretto!?) Roman returns and warns him that Verone is watching them. Verone invites them to a private back room, where he threatens a crooked cop on his payroll, Detective Whitworth, saying he needs a fifteen-minute window during which his officers are not surveilling his properties. Whitworth originally refuses, but then Verone’s goons hold him down and Verone tortures him in an unpleasantly creative manner: he puts a rat on Whitworth’s belly, traps it under an ice bucket, then begins heating the bucket with a mini-blowtorch. When the bucket gets too hot, the rat will be forced to tunnel south. Brian and Roman try to keep poker faces while the Spanish Inquisition is happening right at their feet. Eventually, Whitworth relents and Verone gets his fifteen-minute-window. He also, once Brian and Roman leave, threatens Monica with death, should she ever look at another man. (Just in case you thought Verone might still be an okay guy.)

Early the next morning, Monica breaks into Brian’s houseboat (yes, he lives in a houseboat, just like GOB or Quincy), apparently by water access. (She’s very damp when she appears at his bedside.) She has a warning for Brian: after completion of the job, Verone is going to kill Brian and Roman! That’s when Roman walks in (does nobody ever knock at a houseboat?) and is worried to see Monica at Roman’s bedside. That aside, he came to warns him that Verone’s thugs, Roberto and Enrique, just showed up at the marina. Brian tells Monica to hide in the bathroom while Roman goes outside to stall the thugs. Eventually, they push Brian and Roman outside and search the boat. Luckily, Monica escapes through a bathroom skylight, but an altercation breaks out between our heroes and Verone’s thugs, leading to a tense gunpoint standoff. Verone arrives to defuse the situation, but he also informs our drivers that Roberto and Enrique will be their passengers during tomorrow’s job, adding another layer of complication for Brian and Roman.

The drivers inform Atkins and Markham of (a) where they’re supposed to meet Verone to hand off the laundered money – a certain airstrip – but, also, (b) that Verone plans to kill them. Atkins (good cop) wants to call it off, but Markham refuses. Forced to go through with the job, Brian and Roman enlist the aid of Tej, Suki, and Jimmy to devise a secret plan, the staging ground of which will be a large storage warehouse in the Miami suburbs. The night before the big job, Brian and Roman make up and overcome their bad blood. Roman acknowledges Brian had nothing to do with his time in jail, and, at the same time, we learn why Roman is always eating: “I was in jail, bra’. I know how shitty the grub is on the inside.”

The next day, Verone’s thugs take Brian and Roman to an inconspicuous house, where they sledgehammer down the walls for millions of dollars secreted inside. They stuff it into duffel bags, which Brian and Roman put in their cars. However, Detective Whitworth (remember him? rat guy?) has a change of heart and tells his officers to move in on the suspicious activity they’ve noticed at this Verone property. The cops arrive, and Brian and Roman (each with a Verone thug in their car) race off. Soon, at least two helicopters and countless police cruisers are in pursuit of our heroes. The police even fire one of those EMP harpoons at Brian again, and he has to make a death-defying effort of leaning out the front window to pull the harpoon out of his rear door, all while the extremely nervous Enrique steers from the passenger seat. Police cruisers are smashed all along the highway as Brian and Enrique turn off into a residential area.

Meanwhile, Markham and his SWAT team are hiding by the airstrip, waiting for their moment to jump on Verone. As Brian and Roman weave through cars on city streets, Enrique offers Brian a heartfelt compliment: “You’re a good driver, man.” They drive into the storage warehouse (where we saw them setting up with Tej earlier), and dozens of police cars pull up outside, thinking they have our drivers cornered. Suddenly, the garage doors of the storage warehouse roll up, and about a dozen trucks drive out, crashing into the police and clearing a path. Then, about a hundred sports cars zip out behind them, going every which way but loose. Orange Julius and Slap Jack, as well as dozens of other street racers, have joined forces in this collective action as part of the code of the road. The police are confused, but eventually they spot the purple and yellow cars they were following earlier. They corner the two at the shore, only to find out it’s not Brian and Roman driving! Tej and Suki took their places and Brian and Roman, once inside the storage facility, switched to the muscle cars and are far away. The hotheaded Agent Markham assumes (again, because he never learns) that Brian and Roman are running away, so he moves in on Verone at the airstrip immediately. Only problem is: Verone’s not at the airstrip! It was a hoax!

Brian and Roman are busy driving the money and Verone’s two thugs to that airstrip when Roman decides to test out the ejector seat Jimmy the mechanic rigged the car with (using a half-full tank of nitrous). He fires Roberto out into the Gulf of Mexico, then informs Brian all about it via walkie-talkie. (Which is strange, because Enrique is sitting right beside Brian, and doesn’t seem to catch on that Roman ejected his partner from his car.) Seconds before Brian is about to eject his own passenger, Enrique then tells him not to drive to the airstrip – they’re actually meeting Verone at another location. When they arrive at this secret location, a hidden dock, Verone appears and asks where the other car is (Roman ejected his thug before he could find out about the new location), and whether Brian led the feds to the airstrip. Brian claims he didn’t know anything about any feds, and Verone realizes it was Monica who has been funnelling information to the authorities. He forces Monica onto his power boat at gunpoint, and sets sail (though it’s a motorboat), telling Roberto to get back in the car take care of Brian.

Back in the car, Brian desperately tries to eject his attempted killer, but the device isn’t working. So instead, it’s Roman to the rescue, who arrives at ramming speed, jostling everyone in the car and allowing Brian to push away Enrique’s pistol. Roman and Brian subdue Verone’s thugs, but they have no way of catching the Verone’s boat. Or do they?! And so, Speed rapidly becomes Speed 2: they kick out the car’s bullet-riddled windshield (totally boss), then race alongside the shore, keeping pace with Verone’s ship. Brian jumps a pier and lands on the boat (breaking Roman’s arm in the process)! Verone greets the gatecrashing car with a shotgun, but Brian is quicker on the draw and shoots the cartel boss. And when the injured Verone reaches for his weapon again, Monica gets to it before him and holds him at gunpoint. Back on shore, Roman, overcoming his differences with authority, delivers the laundered money to Atkins to be used as evidence against Verone, and everyone (except Verone) seems pleased. Roman, unsure of what he’ll do next, says he wants to stay in Miami. Brian suggests they can open a garage, maybe using the small portion of the laundered money the took for themselves (wasn’t that how Meineke started?). Credits roll.

Takeaway points:

• As lovely and natural the chemistry is between Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in the original, the chemistry between Tyrese Gibson and Walker suffers heavily by comparison. This is not a slight to Gibson, who brings a lot of personality to a largely thankless role (Roman hates authority, he eats a lot – what other character motivation do you need?). If we’re going to refer to the central male relationships in each Fast & Furious movie as a ‘bromance,’ which I’m loath to do, this is a Harlequin bromance. Whereas Dominic and Brian kind of like and respect each other from the get-go — we’re just two cool guys! — Roman and Brian fight constantly, eventually realizing their animosity is just the sign they are good friends. (“He makes me so angry, but I guess that’s because I love him.”) The Dominic-Brian relationship is natural and seems organic. The Roman-Brian relationship seems forced, and pulled right out of a romance writer’s handbook. So, I’m definitely Team Dominic.
• 2 Fast 2 Furious also suffers in comparison to The Fast and the Furious in its roles for women. Not that The Fast and the Furious was like the Frances Ha of action movies or anything, but Mia Toretto and Letty had personalities and things to do. Monica Fuentes, despite being an accomplished customs agent (one would assume), is mostly there to serve as a new take on the tired old idea of women as untrustworthy. As Roman pointedly asserts, Brian is always getting into troubled because of females (he says, like a drag-racing Ferengi). Suki only shouts catch phrases that come out of a pornographic film. While racing, she shouts, “Whoo! Smack that ass!” (What does that even mean?) The women in 2 Fast 2 Furious become decorative – the street races feature more booty shorts, ‘Porn Star’ T-shirts, and women who respond positively to non-consensual ass grabs. Also, when Brian and Roman arrive in Verone’s club, Roman announces, ‘It’s like a ho-asis in here.” And it’s like, C’mon, Roman, I was just beginning to like you.
• 2 Fast 2 Furious is more mean-spirited than the original, and I can’t put my finger on why. It has a nastier heart: the rat torture, the dude crushed under the tractor trailer. What’s most astonishing is that John Singleton, who typically brings heart to genre films like Boyz n the Hood and Four Brothers, is at the helm. Maybe Vin Diesel is the one who has a positive effect on these movies.
• I didn’t do a proper count, but I’m certain “bro” is the most uttered word in 2 Fast 2 Furious‘s screenplay. Brian and Roman say “bro” or “bra” so often, it develops its own grammar, based on the intonation and syllabic glide, as if it were Mandarin.

How fast?: Probably even faster than the original. When Brian O’Conner uses his two NOS boosts at the same time while jumping a drawbridge, the speedometer needle passes 160 mph. Also, in the final act, they keep pace with a speedboat, so I’d say 2 Fast 2 Furious is almost 2 fast.

How furious?: This movie is also surpasses the original for ferocity. While Dominic Toretto has more reason to be upset about Brian’s betrayal and life in general, Roman Pearce is an angrier individual. Roman hates Brian more for the mere fact he went into law enforcement than Dominic does for Brian abusing his trust. Also, a rat tries to claw its way through a man’s stomach in this movie, the definitive mark of a more furious film.

Favourite car stunt: Here’s the thing: if you drive a car off a pier onto a moving boat’s deck, there’s no way that’s not going to be the best car stunt in a movie. But it was beyond slick when Brian is going reverse full-speed along the freeway, then rapidly 180s to make his exit.

Most magical soundtrack cue: When customs agent Monica Fuentes shows Brian and Roman their official rides (the sweet purple and yellow sports cars), Pitbull’s “Oye” starts on the soundtrack, which is fitting for this Miami-based car-venture. It also cranks when Brian does the ol’ “stare-and-drive,” which is probably one of Pitbull’s moves, too.

Unexpected cameo: the hotheaded Agent Markham is played by James Remar, a.k.a. the equally hotheaded Ajax from The Warrior!

Bechdel Test Moment: Suki has some pep talk conversations with her female crew before the first race, so they’re mostly talking about cars and race strategy then. Otherwise, the women in 2 Fast 2 Furious don’t really talk to one another.

Line of dialogue that makes it clear we’re talking both about a car and the driver’s sexual organ(s): “That’s some driving for your ass!” – Roman Pearce, to his passenger, Enrique. And though it wasn’t about a car, I also enjoyed Monica Fuentes’s line, “He’s clean. Dirty, but clean.”

Best fashion moment: I have to hand it to Roman Pearce’s arrival at police headquarters in a sleeveless variation on the Canadian tuxedo. Picture Tyrese in blue jeans, a blue button-down (though barely buttoned) denim shirt with the sleeves torn off and Timbaland boots. However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Brian O’Conner, for some inexplicable reason, mostly dresses like he’s a member of Blink-182 in this movie.

Next up: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006).