Speed Happens

Reviewed - The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift: NOW that all the stars of The Fast and the Furious have moved on to better - or, at least, other - things, the third film to accommodate those adjectives in its title no longer looks like a sequel.

Rather than a proper franchise, the films come across like effusions of a precisely defined class of automotive pornography. As in fleshier forms of erotica, the plot is merely a device to tie together prolonged spasms of noisy, overheated thrusting. The story may allow the introduction of certain exotic fetishes, but the flourishes, however tantalising, should not overly delay the burning of more rubber.

Tokyo Drift does satisfy the requirements of its tawdry genre quite effectively. Beginning with a fantastic race through a suburban building site, the picture follows Lucas Black's superannuated juvenile delinquent as, disgraced by that opening adventure's unhappy conclusion, he is sent to live with his father in Tokyo.

Local colour, in the form of quirky Asian pop and eccentric conventions and inventions, provides the required glamorous embellishment, while the money shots - smaller cars drifting screechily round tight bends - are, for those who care for such things, very nicely carried off.

Sadly, as the film progresses, the foolish film-makers succumb to the fatal temptations of plot and dialogue. Nobody went to Rosie Dixon - Night Nurse (ask a seedier Uncle) to learn about the NHS. Petrolheads will have just as little interest in the boring Yakuza drama that clogs up Tokyo Drift's cylinders in its final few laps.