It was supposed to be, in the words of Universal Pictures\u2019 Scott Stuber, \u201ca small kids and cars movie for spring break.\u201d But in the hands of director Rob Cohen, and stars Paul Walker and Vin Diesel, the 2001 movie The Fast and the Furious became something else\u2014a massive, iconic blockbuster that turned into an unstoppable franchise, one that is still going strong. In his book, film critic Hertz aims to take readers behind the scenes of the Fast & Furious franchise, which has stretched across 11 films and starred notable actors, including Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, and, improbably, Helen Mirren. Based on more than 170 interviews, Hertz\u2019s book takes readers behind the conception and shooting of all of the car-centric action films, which, he says, \u201cserve as a rebuke to the kind of mushy modern blockbuster that values pixels over people, safety over sensation.\u201d Hertz does a great job explaining the innovations that brought the films to life and exploring the various dramas that have plagued the franchise for years, particularly the long-running feud between Diesel and Johnson that reached a crescendo with Johnson\u2019s Instagram post with the #ZeroToleranceforCandyAsses hashtag. The franchise was threatened by the death of Walker in a 2013 car crash, which Hertz handles sensitively: \u201cNo longer was the Fast team simply finishing a movie; they were honoring a life.\u201d Hertz\u2019s prose is muscular, matching the tone of the films, and he understands the movies\u2019 appeal, which has extended beyond their initial planned audience of young men. Anyone interested in the history of modern popular film will get lost in Hertz\u2019s well-told story.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was supposed to be, in the words of Universal Pictures\u2019 Scott Stuber, \u201ca small kids and cars movie for spring break.\u201d But in the hands of director Rob Cohen, and stars Paul Walker and Vin Diesel, the 2001 movie The Fast and the Furious became something else\u2014a massive, iconic blockbuster that turned into an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}