Director Rob Cohen is an evil genius. In The Fast and the Furious he has created a film which quickly and efficiently bypasses the brain and goes straight for the guts and the groin. If you don't want to go out and drive fast after seeing this movie, you're probably already dead.

Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) is an undercover cop infiltrating illegal street racer gangs in suburban LA. He's after the bandits in the black Honda Civics behind a series of breathtaking truck hijacks. But to get to them he'll have to go head to head with speed king racer Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel).

Weapons of choice are souped up Japanese supercars with the muscle to smoke a quarter mile street run. Crammed with tens of thousands of dollars worth of import-only extras, they rely on chassis threatening injections of nitrous oxide to leave the opposition for dead. For Brian, it's all too much fun. The first time he drives, the engine rips the floor out of his car and showers piston rings around his feet. Then the ride gets shot up by Vietnamese gangsters. He's hooked.

Director Cohen mikes up every squealing tyre in sight and soundtracks each second with the sort of high-octane sports metal and gonzoid headbanging techno we're all supposed not to like. Chicks strut by in halter tops and hot pants, while dudes tinker with their fuel mix. Bankrolls are flashed and the sexual tension goes through the roof. That's entertainment.

The plot is not even secondary. Direction and script are fast and flashy because they have to be. Give the audience time to think and the film is lost. So Cohen fills the frames with visual flash bang. There's even room to borrow a trick from Three Kings' director Spike Jonze, sending the camera snaking down the gear lever and into the innards of an engine revving at the limit.

As Toretto, the superbly named Vin Diesel is a ruthless criminal, who also acts as father figure for a surrogate family of needy misfits and lost souls. Cohen brought Paul Walker to the film straight from his leading role in The Skulls and the young actor enjoys getting sucked in to the race world. Girlfight's Michelle Rodriguez exudes street smarts. If the rest are stereotypes, at least they're racially mixed stereotypes.

It ends as expected, in a skidding pile of tearing metal and burning rubber. Furiously fast. Don't drive home unless your license can handle the endorsements.