This movie was a pleasant surprise. I went in expecting a dumb car movie that's a knockoff of any number of other dumb car movies and was treated to a well-executed thoroughly enjoyable fun dumb car movie.I say dumb because the teen drama part of the film is really predictable. It's a paint-by-numbers movie that hits all the required tropes and stereotypical characters, but it's very well done.You know the tropes when you see them, the actors know them, the movie is conscious of them, but it plays it well and moves on.Dumb things the movie does (including dumb character actions) are forgivable, because it's a fun movie.On to the cars...I'll preface this by saying I'm more of a fan of older generation car movies (Vanishing Point, Dirty Mary & Crazy Larry, etc.), and tend to be an American car guy who finds imports dull. Chipping a car doesn't have the same appeal to me as wrenching on one, so I'm a viewer with a bias. BUT...That said, I was very pleasantly surprised. There were plenty of new and old cars to look at, some less common, some more common, some domestic, some import. One of the people I watched the movie with was a huge import buff, and enjoyed it for the imports that were highlighted. I enjoyed it for some of the less-common domestics in the film.The good racing scenes are done well, and the speed of the races is done well also. There's not a huge amount of time distortion done to most of them during drag racing sequences, just good editing to add to the feel of the movie. The road racing sequences are done pretty well, edited well, and are engaging (and even if one or two may fall in the "dumb" category, it's still a fun movie, so you can forgive it).The car tech-speak I'm familiar with (non-import stuff) struck me as showing the movie hired at technical adviser at least, and also elevated itself a bit. So it wasn't completely dumb.Overall, it's a well-executed, thoroughly enjoyable fun mostly-dumb car movie that left me smiling.

I only found out about this film after a fellow reviewer reviewed it. Did this even get a cinematic release? anyway I liked the poster and it seemed to centre around import racers so that's me in. Yep as you may have guessed after what I just typed, I'm a Jap car fan, so be weary that I will most definitely be biased in my review of the automobiles on display here (broad grin).OK so the plot...well lets just skip this shall we, I think we all know very well this type of film is not gonna have a deep plot. No one goes to see a film about boy racers expecting a solid story line, they go to see sweet super saloons melting tarmac. But if you really must know, a young tearaway teen who just happens to own a super turbo charged Subaru Impreza WRX STi, goes to live with his divorced dad because his mum can't handle his dangerous driving antics. He must content with a new school, new bullies, new temptations and his poor relationship with his father. So naturally he ends up getting into more trouble racing and causing much friction, but at the end of the day he overcomes all adversities with an all round happy ending. Yep its the standard 'Karate Kid' plot with cars.OK I won't linger on the story much but the one thing that always makes me laugh with these car racer flicks is the fact the characters have easy access to these super cars. In the Fast n Furious franchise there is literately a never ending stream of them, here the main character is 17 years old and still goes to school!. How the hell can he afford to run a Subaru with no job??. The fact he's a whiz kid with mechanics helps of course because he can mod his own car but he still needs money to pay for equipment and parts. The other thing that kinda surprised me was the fact his high school has a high performance car modification class? and a fully equipped garage to host it? is this an American thing?. Oh and this class encourages pupils to take part in a highly dangerous drag racing competition?...wut?! do they need permission slips from their parents for this death ride?.This leads me to the fact that the main character (a really sulky po- faced ugly little creep) is trying to get his life on track and stay away from dangerous driving. His father, mother and teachers are trying to help him, yet one teacher wants him to race in this competition. Doesn't that present a conflict of interests? surely getting the kid involved in a drag race competition will surely get him more involved in street racing or taking risks, the temptation will be high no?.Moving on...the cars, the competition, the street racing...it does the job well. Yes believe it or not this film is solid in terms of actual racing just like the first and third Fast n Furious films. The visuals aren't quite as slick as said franchise, you can tell the cars aren't going at genuine speeds in some sequences and the actors aren't really driving. But the cars on show are lovely and they do get shown off well.The finale competition is also quite well done, again expect the typical 'Karate Kid' scenario I'm afraid, no surprises here, you know who's gonna win. That aside the cars get good cam time and you get a really nice range of models. The film is basically import vs American muscle which I find amusing really. The race commentator refers to the Subaru as 'the little Subaru', just like they referred to the VW Beetle in the Herbie franchise, because its the underdog of the competition. Dear oh dear they have no clue.Half of the American cars on show are old battle-axes in my opinion, they look like they just rolled off the set of Happy Days. Most of these cars look like bricks and probably handle like it too, all show and no go, noise before power, in my humble opinion any properly modded 370Z, Skyline or Evo would kill all of them quite easily...let alone the Subaru. There's even one race where the young protagonist must race a flippin' pickup truck! looks like some hick hay bale carrier, laughable.So basically if you like fast cars, slutty bitchy cheerleader types, a good stereotypical asshole bully and a good stereotypical brooding hero...or if you just wanna see fast cars, then you will like this. I think its holds its own against the Fast n Furious brand because its more grounded and a little more believable, kinda. 'FnF' has lost its way recently and become a comicbook superhero flick in my eyes, its no longer about the cars. Yes this story is unbelievably predictable, unbelievably clichéd and generally poor, but it does what it sets out to do which is provide good racing action with a nice explosive final crash stunt at the end. No big stars and not many big flashy show off stunts or effects, its basic racing and it works pretty well. 6.5/10

Personally, I like really much racing movies, but for some reason it is very hard for me to find good racing movie and I can name them: F&F, F&F2, F&F:Tokyo Drift, Initial D Drift Racer, and now I can count this one too. Rest of them either are not so into racing (like more focusing on shooting etc.) or they aren't done well (like Red Line - don't misunderstand me, it is fairly good movie, but still I feel that is missing racing spirit).This movies reminds me to Fast & Furious (1st part only) where you have all the racing going with good story background. Latest F&F serials are not so much about racing, instead they do some shooting and similar action.Even that story is somewhat predictable, it was still interesting for me to watch it.Overall, I would say that everything is very good done (story, acting..., but I don't want to reveal parts, I'm leaving that to you :) ).I totally enjoyed watching it, and yeah, it is more than I expected - 10 stars from me :)

You won't regret seeing this movie if you enjoy car racing and seeing bullies get their just due. I must admit I enjoyed this movie, although it followed the usual template of obnoxious young bullies, father who is "mean" in his son's eyes for not giving in to every little whim of his son,and teenage romance. The acting was not first rate, but passable. I would have liked to see more hard core car racing beyond mountainside twists and turns and drag strip straightaways. For example, the "drifting" in the parking garages in "Tokyo Drift" was amazing, and not seen in this movie. Although the movie was not a great love story, not a great car movie, and not a great revenge movie against bullies, it somehow worked in the end , and I thoroughly enjoyed it.