Spoiler Alert
I went to the cheap theater this evening with the fam and caught The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. It really wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it would be. I was expecting a movie with a plot as thin as Mary Kate Olson and acting that would make Tori Spelling cringe. Instead I got a movie with a plot as thin as Mary Kate Olson, acting that would make Tori Spelling cringe, and some pretty fucking sick car race/chase scenes.
There was a point in the movie, however, that was so ridiculous the entire movie theater (all six of us) groaned in unison. Cody (at least I think that is the protagonist’s name) waltzes into a yakuza bar to see the boss man, played by Sonny Chiba. Now this Yakuza boss is pissed at Cody, not only has Cody been fucking around with his nephew’s girl, but he was also working for a guy that was doing some illegal hanky-panky without paying restitution to Sonny boy. But before the big bad boss man can whip out his katana sword and slice off Cody’s left teste, the cocky youth lays out a proposition. A race. If Cody loses, he is fish food, if he wins he gets the girl.
My big problem is that Sonny Chiba, a Yakuza boss, agrees to this crazy deal. Any self-respecting mobster would have cut off Cody’s head and used it as a cereal bowl, after all could you imagine the ramifications? The Yakuza would never make another dollar, they would be too busy being challenged to footraces by money grubbing prostitutes and eating contests by people that refused to pay protection fees.
Anyway, if you just purchased a racing video game or have the desire to drive your car way too recklessly, go see Tokyo Drift, it’ll put you in that frame of mind. If you want a thought provoking, plot involved movie…well you probably stopped reading this after I mentioned The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift back in the first sentence.
