I expected another loud car racing movie and I got one. But unlike that bore of a year ago, “Gone in Sixty Seconds”, this one got some of it right.

Paul Walker plays a guy named Brian who leaves Arizona for L.A. to join the excitement of “big time” street car racing. He takes a job in an auto parts store and works at catching on with the local street racing master, a guy named Dominic, played by Vin Diesel.

It isn’t long before we get a look at a pretty elaborate racing scene at night in downtown L.A.. And you thought downtown was pretty boring after dark? There’s a whole world of speed demons that come out. Hundreds of them lining the streets and monitoring police scanners while betting cash and sometimes their prized cars in looking to win the big race. And what an ethnic mix. Disney’s “It’s A Small World After All” has nothing on this group. There’s a Latino racing gang, and a black racing gang and even an Asian racing gang. And then there’s Dominic’s gang, which resembles, I don’t know what, mixed white trash or something.

If you think Brian’s too clean-cut and smart looking for this activity, you aren’t the only one. He’s actually an undercover cop trying to solve a series of truck hijackings. Talk about elaborate – these guys use their beautiful, fast cars to hunt down truckers leaving the ports and complete a series of death defying maneuvers to heist the goods. Seems like a lot of work to me against dangerous teamster guys for what turns out to be truckloads of DVD’s and TV’s, but, hey, it’s the movies. You can suspend belief for this, because the robberies are carried off in great stunt fashion. Check out the use of nitrous oxide to push the cars off to “Star Trek” warp speed in a matter of seconds. And the slow mo-to fast- mo mix to portray the actions of driver, car, engine and even fuel mix is pretty dazzling.

Of course, wrapped around all this is the mystery of who’s doing the hijackings. Is it the Latinos? The blacks? The Asians? Or is it Dominic and his motley crew? Also, there’s a couple of romances going on between Brian and Dominic’s sister and Dominic and one of his racing pals. She’s played by Michelle Rodriguez and boy can she scowl. Ah, but the women in this movie were put there mostly to emerge from fast cars wearing little clothing, so what does any of this matter?

“The Fast and The Furious” passes the speed limit but Paul Walker is miscast in the lead role, his voice sounding too much like Keanu Reeves. He’s a lightweight next to Vin Diesel who’s got the look, sound and body for a bigger career. I get the “fast” part of this movie, but the “furious” part puzzles me a bit. I guess it’s just a catchier title that way. I give it a “6.0”