Fast & Furious 4 (2009)

Fast & Furious (also known as Fast & Furious 4) is a 2009 American action film directed by Justin Lin and written by Chris Morgan. It is the sequel to The Fast and the Furious (2001) and 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) and is the fourth installment in the Fast & Furious franchise. The film stars Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto and Paul Walker as Brian O’Conner, with Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, John Ortiz, and Laz Alonso in supporting roles. In the film, Toretto and O’Conner are forced to team up to apprehend a drug lord, with whom Toretto holds a personal grudge. A fourth film was announced in July 2007, with the returns of Diesel, Walker, Rodriguez, and Brewster confirmed shortly thereafter. To account for the original cast seeing absences from either of the previous two installments, the film was developed to retcon The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) as occurring beyond the events of Fast & Furious, while the short film Los Bandoleros (2009) was produced and released.

Principal photography began in February 2008 and concluded that July, with filming locations including Los Angeles and the Dominican Republic. Lin, Morgan, and composer Brian Tyler returned in their roles from Tokyo Drift. Fast & Furious is the first film to feature D-BOX motion. Fast & Furious was scheduled to be released in June 2009, but premiered at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles on March 12, 2009 and was theatrically released worldwide by Universal Pictures on April 3. The film received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for reuniting the original cast and the action sequences, but criticism for its screenplay. It grossed over $360 million worldwide, subverting expectations to become the then-highest-grossing film in the franchise, and the 17th highest-grossing film of 2009. It also grossed $72.5 million worldwide during its opening weekend, which made it the highest grossing worldwide spring weekend opening of all time, until the release of Alice in Wonderland (2010). A sequel, Fast Five, was released in April 2011.

Plot.

Five years after escaping from the U.S., Dominic Toretto and his new crew, consisting of his girlfriend Letty, Tego Leo, Rico Santos, Cara and Han Lue, are hijacking fuel tankers in the Dominican Republic using heavily modified 1967 and 1988 Chevrolet trucks and a 1987 Buick Grand National. Dom suspects that the police are on their trail, forcing the crew to disband and go their separate ways, with Han deciding to go to Tokyo. Realizing that he must leave, Dom runs, leaving Letty behind to protect herself from harm. Three months later, Dom is now residing in Panama City. He gets a call from his sister, Mia Toretto, who tells him that Letty has been murdered. Dom heads back to Los Angeles to attend her funeral and examine the crash and finds traces of nitromethane on the ground. He visits the only car mechanic that sells nitromethane in LA and forces him into giving him the name David Park, the man who ordered the fuel, and informs him that the only car that uses nitromethane in the area is a green 1972 Ford Torino Sport.

Meanwhile, FBI agent Brian O’Conner is trying to track down a Mexican drug lord, Arturo Braga. His search leads him to David Park, and he tracks him down using an illegal modification record on his car. Dom arrives at Park’s apartment first and hangs him out of the window by his ankles before Brian arrives. Brian saves Park and Park becomes the FBI’s new informant. Park gets Brian into a street race. Brian selects a 2002 Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 from the impound lot, which he modifies with parts from another Skyline and a 2007 Nissan GT-R. Dom modifies his 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS for the race. Ramon Campos, Braga’s second in command and Gisele Yashar, Braga’s liaison reveal that the winner will become the last driver on a team that traffics heroin between the Mexico–United States border. Dom wins by bumping Brian’s car while it is in nitro, making him lose control. Brian uses his power as an FBI agent to arrest another driver, Dwight Mueller, and takes his place on the team.

Fast Five 5 (2011) Biography, Plot, Development, Writing, Filming, Marketing, Trailer.

The team meets up with Braga’s personal henchman, Fenix, and Dom notices that Fenix drives the same Torino the mechanic described. They drive across the border using tunnels to avoid detection. Dom confronts Fenix and learns that he kills the drivers after their work is done, and that he himself killed Letty when she tried to escape him. A stand-off ensues, though not before Dom creates a diversion by loosening his car with nitrous—sparking a vehicle explosion that destroys his car and several others, including Brian’s. In the ensuing chaos, Brian and Dom hijack a 1999 Hummer H1 with $60 million worth of heroin in it. Brian and Dom drive back to LA and hide the heroin in a police impound lot, where they pick up a modified 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI Hatchback; they subsequently drive back to Dom’s house, where they reunite with Mia.

Production.

The film was announced in July 2007. Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and the rest of the cast of the original film all reprised their roles. Filming began in 2008. The movie cars were built in Southern California’s San Fernando Valley. Around 240 cars were built for the film. However, the replica vehicles do not match the specifications they were supposed to represent. For example, the replica version of F-Bomb, a 1973 Chevrolet Camaro built by Tom Nelson of NRE and David Freiburger of Hot Rod magazine, included a 300 hp crate V8 engine with a 3-speed automatic transmission, whereas the actual car included a twin-turbo 1,500 hp engine and a 5-speed transmission. The original Dodge Charger 426 Hemi R/T that was used in the original movie was a 1970,

but the car in this movie was a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T 426 Hemi with a slightly modified front grill and rear tail lights to appear as a 1970 car; the original 1970 Dodge Charger was in pieces, being totally disassembled for restoration. The original red 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS seen in the end credits of the first Fast & Furious movie, also makes an appearance but is later highly modified for a street race. The most radical vehicles built for the film were the Chevy trucks constructed for the fuel heist. Powered by 502ci GM big block motors, the ’67 had a giant ladder-bar suspension with airbags using a massive 10-ton semi rear axle with the biggest and widest truck tires they could find.

The ’88 Chevy Crew Cab was built with twin full-floating GM 1-ton axles equipped with Detroit Lockers and a transfer case directing power to both axles and capable of four-wheel burnouts. Another vehicle built for the film was the blue Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 owned by an uncredited owner which brought a 241-mile per hour top speed at the Bayshore Route Highway in Japan. It was a hard car to build by the production so they made clones by acquiring Nissan Skyline 25GT’s and made them look like the original car. The Skyline that was also used at the desert was actually a dune buggy using a Skyline R34’s shell.

Release.

It was originally set to release on June 12, 2009, but moved it up to April 3, 2009, instead. It was the first motion-enhanced theatrical film to feature D-BOX motion feedback technology in selected theaters. Fast & Furious was released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 28, 2009. The DVD is a two-disc set that includes:

Home video.

Digital copy of the film Under the Hood: Muscle Cars & Imports High Octane Action: The Stunts Shooting the Big Rig Heist Driving School with Vin Diesel Original short film Los Bandoleros, the never-before-seen short film that reveals the events leading up to the explosive beginning of Fast & Furious. It is written and directed by Vin Diesel and was produced in the Dominican Republic. This was released on the iTunes Store as a free download. As of June 2021, the DVD and Blu-ray sales have sold 4,616,164 copies generating $77,846,318 in sales revenue. It was re-released in Australia on Blu-ray including a digital copy and re-titled Fast & Furious 4 on March 30, 2011.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) Biography, Plot, Development, Technical, Trailer.

Box office.

On its first day of release Fast & Furious grossed $30.6 million, and peaked at the top spot of the weekend box office with $72.5 million, more than Tokyo Drift earned in its entire domestic run. The film had the sixth-biggest opening weekend of 2009 and was double what most industry observers expected. Additionally, it surpassed The Lost World: Jurassic Park’s record for having the largest opening weekend for any Universal film. It also held the record for the highest-grossing opening weekend in April and of any car-oriented film, the record having been previously held by Cars, which grossed $60.1 million. Both of these records were broken two years later by Fast Five, which grossed $86.2 million.

Fast & Furious also held the record for the highest opening weekend for a spring release, until it was broken by Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Its worldwide gross on its opening weekend stands at $102.6 million[3] with $7.2 million coming from the UK, $8.6 million from Russia, $6 million in France and $3 million from Germany. The film ended its theatrical release on July 2, 2009, with a gross of $155,064,265 in the United States and Canada and $205,300,000 internationally for a worldwide total of $360,364,265, making it the 17th highest-grossing film of 2009.

Cast:

Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto:
Paul Walker as Brian O’Conner:
Michelle Rodriguez as Letty Ortiz:
Jordana Brewster as Mia Toretto:
John Ortiz as Arturo Braga / Ramon Campos:
Gal Gadot as Gisele Yashar:
Laz Alonso as Fenix Calderon: