Fast & Furious 2009 – ripper car movies

Add Street Machine as a preferred source on Google

Unofficially the sequel to this franchise’s original offering, 2001’s The Fast and the Furious (Fanging Flick, SM, Oct ’18), but officially the sequel to the second movie, 2 Fast 2 Furious (SM, Apr ’21), Fast & Furious – yes, it gets very confusing – is in fact the fourth film of the series, but the one that sees the original band getting back together.

First published in the July 2026 issue of Street Machine

Muscle-clad Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) has been earning a crust hijacking petrol tankers along with his better half, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and a motley crew including the likeable Han (Sung Kang) – pre-empting his appearance in the third F&F flick, Tokyo Drift (SM, Nov ’24), even though that’s meant to take place after this fourth movie (hey, I told you it gets confusing).

LA undercover cop Brian (Paul Walker) has re-earned his law enforcement stripes and is now donning suits as an FBI agent, while still holding a candle for Dom’s sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster). The paths of Brian and Dom again collide following the alleged murder of Letty at the hands of ‘nitrometh’ aficionado Fenix (Laz Alonso), a permanently race-faced thug of cartel boss, Arturo Braga (John Ortiz).

Brian and Dom shelve their previous grievances and agree to avenge Letty’s death. The pair team up to street-race their way into Braga’s drug running crew, shifting product via an elaborate border tunnel system that crosses into the US from Mexico. After their first mule delivery comes to a fiery end, Brian and Dom seize the drugs during a shoot-out, while a kind act towards Braga’s right-hand lady, Gisele (Gal Gadot), brings her on board to help the pair.

Brian and Dom use the seized shipment as a multi-million dollar bargaining chip to flush Braga out into the open so they can exact their revenge, and in true Fast fashion, a hot-and-heavy, CGI-clad car chase ensues so that the bad guys can be brought to account for their sins.

A final act from Dom to attempt to face the music for his crimes backfires, but it isn’t long before old habits resurface and the gang reunite to lay the groundwork for Fast Five.

VERDICT: 3.5/5

While the over-the-top reputation of the entire Fast franchise definitely precedes it, you can’t knock these flicks for their saturation of decent car action and the way they bridge the gap between the different strands of hot-car culture. It’s easy to have a giggle at Dominic Toretto’s monotone pronouncements of how good he is, which – along with a random ability to wheelstand cars at a variety of speeds – makes for not only a great bunch of memes but adds to the underlying easy appeal of these films. That said, I reckon Fast & Furious is one of the better entries in the franchise, although it definitely shows signs that the series would soon start to get a little too crazy.