Spoilers for a 25-year-old movie.

Ten films and counting, and grossing $7.5 billion at the box office, it’s no doubt that the Fast franchise is a surprise juggernaut. But it has a humble beginning as a small-stakes street racing film. That movie, The Fast and the Furious, is now 25 years old. So how does the movie fare after all this time, especially considering the pivot the franchise has taken over the years?

So let’s get the obvious out of the way: yes, The Fast and the Furious is basically just a poor man’s Point Break, but with cars instead of boards. The film stars Paul Walker as Brian, an undercover LAPD officer working with the FBI investigating a series of targeted truck-jackings, mainly containing DVD players with a total value of over $ 6 million and counting (oh, how times have changed!). Law enforcement believes the thieves are part of the street racing scene, due to the tire tracks left at the crime scenes being favoured by those who street race. So Brian is sent to infiltrate the life and world of Dominic Toretto, the undisputed champ of the street racing scene, so he either knows or is the chief suspect.

Now the movie isn’t per se great. It’s quite clunky at times, especially in the first act, as it stumbles from location to location as nothing more than extended music videos with some very wooden/stiff acting. I did appreciate that there’s some “read between the lines” for exposition earlier on, such as Harry knowing Brian is a cop without ever saying it, but the opening overall comes across as more style than substance. The film does find its groove with its characters once it’s revealed that Brian is a cop, which happens around 40-ish minutes into the movie. Vin Diesel also gets a lot more to do here in terms of acting as Dom compared to any of the other films in the franchise. The scene where he talks to Brian about losing his dad in a car crash during a sanctioned race, and subsequently nearly beating the other driver in the race to death, actually has weight and merit. Rounding out the cast are Jordana Brewster as Mia, Dom’s sister and Brian’s love interest; Michelle Rodriguez as Letty, Dom’s no-nonsense girlfriend; future Bond villain Rick Yune as Johnny Tran; Chad Lindberg as Jesse, the mathematician amongst the group; and Matt Shulze as Vince, Dom’s best friend who hates and distrusts Brian on impulse. The Silence of the Lambs’ Ted Levine adds a sprinkle of experience as Tanner, Brian’s superior at the LAPD.

And yet, despite the problems that are very present in the opening, the movie somehow works. It does have a lot of things working in its favour, which is in part why it’s so iconic. Unlike later films in the franchise, this is a smaller-scale movie. So no flying cars into space or between skyscrapers. This is a grounded movie, and a surprising amount of the stunts in the movie are shot in-camera, most notably the highway robbery scene towards the end of the film and the final race between Brian and Dom by the railyard. The first true street race, the one at night with Ja Rule, does feel very janky and dated, thanks to a lot of CG used to give the illusion of speed, but other races/stunts in the film hold up quite nicely, even if the stunt doubles are obvious. But I’ll take a Paul Walker stunt double jumping from a car to an 18-wheeler or a car flipping in the air practically than CGI slop any day.

But perhaps most importantly, the movie captures the spirit of early 2000s street racing culture. The film is synonymous with its depiction of street racing, thanks in part to using hundreds, if not thousands, of real-world extras who brought in their own cars for the movie. It captures the (dated) style of the culture (so much Von Dutch!), the flashy tuner import cars, and the subcultures between the racers. Quite often, when a studio taps into a subset of youth culture at the time, it feels like that Steve Busemici meme, “Hello, fellow young people”. But The Fast and the Furious doesn’t have this problem; it feels quite authentic, and since it resonated so much, it became a cultural touchstone.

The Fast and the Furious may not be the best film in the franchise (I’d argue it’s the fifth film that claims that honour), but it is the most genuine and authentic for the time and culture. It’s lightning in a bottle that tapped into street racing culture in a way that felt authentic and entertaining. Is it redundant when compared to Point Break? Yes. Is it clunky? Also yes. Is it fun and memorable? Absolutely.