A group of Honda Civics are hijacking trucks and taking their contents. One car first goes in front of the truck and uses a hook to pull off the pane of glass. One of the people then uses a grappling hook to enter the cab, subdue the driver, and drive off with the contents. The truckers are about to arm themselves and take things into their own hands, but hold off and let the police try to handle it. Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) is an undercover cop who is trying to find out who is responsible for these truck hijackings.
He tries to get in with a group of people led by Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). Toretto runs a grocery shop and does tune ups on cars. Vince (Matt Schulze) gets into a fight with Brian which Dominic breaks up and tells Brian not to come back. Brian shows up again at a car race and bets his car that he will win. Dominic easily beats him in the race. The police then come to break up the race. Everyone flees, but Brian stays around and picks Dominic up. They are accosted by a rival Vietnamese car shop. They blow up Brian's car. Afterwards, Toretto says that Brian still owes him a ten-second car, or a car that can complete the 1/4 mile in ten seconds or less.
Soon, Brian gets inside the Toretto clan. He dates Dominic's sister, Mia, and begins tuning up cars and find out more information. The skid marks of the Honda Civics show a brand of tires. When Brian goes into the shop late at night to check out the cars, the tires don't correspond to the tires on the Civics. Vince, one of Dominic's friends, finds Brian poking around and accuses him of being a cop. Brian denies it and says that he can't lose another race and was checking everyone's cars out. Dominic, Vince, and Brian then break into the Vietnamese car shop, where they find a stack of DVD players and cars without engines in them.
Brian reports his findings to his superiors. After another truck hijacking, the police move in and arrest all the members of the Vietnamese car shop, but find that the players were legally purchased and that they are not the ones doing the hijackings. Brian's superior tells him that it has to be Toretto doing it. Brian casually asks Toretto where he got the money to buy all the equipment and says that whatever Toretto is doing, he wants to be in on it. Toretto agrees as long as Brian wins the upcoming Race Wars, which take place in the desert.
In one race, Toretto clan member Jesse races Johnny Tran and loses. He then drives away very fast. At night, Toretto and the rest of the clan drive out. Brian tells Mia that he's an undercover cop and tells her that the truckers are now armed. He convinces her to come with him to save her brother and his friends.
They trace his cell phone to Highway 86. Toretto pulls out the Civics to make one last carjacking. As dawn breaks, they find the truck and attempt to hijack it. However, the truck driver is armed with a shotgun. Vince's arm is trapped in the hook as Letty and Toretto swing wildly to try to rescue him. Letty's car soon flips over and Dominic soon skids off the road. Brian catches up to the truck and gets Vince off as the truck driver is reloading his gun. He calls a helicopter in, revealing to Toretto that he is a cop. Toretto drives off angrily.
Brian confronts Toretto at his house. At that moment, Jesse comes back. A couple of Vietnamese car shop people on motorcycles do a drive-by shooting and seriously injure Jesse. Brian and Dominic drive out in their cars to go after them. Dominic forces one cycle to flip over. Brian successfully shoots the other motorcycle. They then find themselves at an intersection and engage in a street race. A train approaches. Both cars manage to speed up and pass the tracks as the train barrels down on them. As they look at each other after their race, however, Dominic sideswipes a truck and his car flips over. Brian gets out of his car to check on Dominic. Dominic is okay, though his car is destroyed. Suddenly, they notice that the cops are coming. Knowing Dominic will be arrested when they arrive, Brian gives his keys to Dominic, saying, "I still owe you a ten-second car." Brian then allows Dominic to escape.
The film was an unexpected summer hit. It grossed $40,089,015 on its opening weekend, surpassing the film's $38 million budget. It grossed a total of $144,533,925 on the domestic market, and $62,750,000 overseas, for a total of $207,283,925.
In Japan where the movie is known as Wild Speed, a self titled arcade video game was released by Taito in 2006. A trailer for the movie was included in the 2001 PlayStation 2 game Tokyo Extreme Racer Zero which is part of the influential long running Shutokou Battle series itself inspired by the Freeway Speedway 1980s movies.
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