What I learned about cars watching all 8 Fast & Furious movies in 4 days

Enlarge / LOOKS LIKE THEM DUKE BOYS ARE AT IT AGAIN (credit: Universal Pictures)

As of last week, I had never seen any movies in the Fast & Furious franchise. I probably missed the first one in 2001 because I was planning my wedding or something else equally pedestrian. Then, before I knew it, there were seven more, and I had no chance of catching up.

But now the franchise has lasted longer than any of our president’s marriages and has just birthed its first spin-off feature. So I have taken it upon myself to shotgun all eight movies in four days and report back to you what they have taught me about cars.

For the uninitiated, F&F more or less follows the car-crashing bromance of two shredded dude-bros played by Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. The former is a cop-turned-crook-turned-cop-turned-vigilante secret agent. The latter is a street-racing crook who eventually—well, look, there isn’t really a job description for what these guys end up doing by the end of the series. When not racing or knocking heads, their relationship consists of Diesel dispensing blue-collar wisdom in a monotone while Paul Walker stares adoringly.