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The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Cool car races, weak plot

By TOM MEEK | June 14, 2006

1.5 Stars

SPINNING HIS WHEELS: Lucas Black doesn't get much to work with in Tokyo Drift

Vin Diesel and Paul Walker have left the franchise, so in this slack retooling, we get Lucas Black in the Walker-esque role of Sean Boswell, who for convoluted reasons winds up in the barrio of Tokyo trying to prove his mettle “drifting” — that’s drag racing sideways in Day-Glo tin cans to you and me. Director Justin Lin, who fared better with Annapolis and Better Luck Tomorrow, is an effusive stylist who knows how to frame a backside, whether that of a scantily clad babe or a bristling Nissan rocket. The car races/chases invigorate, but the plot, a hash of an American on foreign soil, the Yakuza underworld, and reconnecting with your father, just spins its wheels. Black, who was so good in Friday Night Lights and Jarhead, isn’t given much, and though love interest Nathalie Kelley is beguiling to the eye, she’s as animated as a flat tire.

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