You're a street racer. He's a street racer. Both of you dig women, speed and nitro-torqued muscle cars, though not necessarily in that order. So how do you tell a fellow gear head you love him?

A. "Show me your stand-alone fuel management system and I'll show you mine."

B. "Is that a T-4 turbo under your hood, or are you just glad to see me?"

C. Trick question, silly. Guys don't talk, they drive!

"Fast & Furious" refires the high-speed adrenaline and the fuel-injected bromance between Vin Diesel and Paul Walker that began in 2001's "The Fast and the Furious" -- both set in the subculture of Los Angeles street racers. (There were two sequels in between, "2 Fast 2 Furious" and "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," but the latest installment is the first to reteam Diesel, Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster.) The reunion is fun and frantic, like the original on double nitro. Gone is the young-boy innocence of the first, in which guys (and gals) cheated death at high velocity like towheaded surfer dudes. Now it's all about kill-or-be-killed screeching, shooting and colliding at the Mexican border, with FBI SWAT teams and helicopters in frantic pursuit.

An opening sequence involving mountain road racing and a hurtling truck tanker makes for a thrilling curtain raiser. And fans will enjoy the usual winner-takes-all races through L.A. traffic without a wussy street closing, and through a labyrinthine mountain tunnel at the border.

Bromance-wise, there's some bad blood between Dominic (Diesel) and Brian (Walker) to clear up: all that 2001 business about Brian being an undercover cop and not telling Dom and his girlfriend (Brewster). But it's nothing a dangerous mission to bust a Mexican crime lord can't solve.

-- Desson Thomson (April 3, 2009)

Contains dangerous car chases and fatalities, beer drinking, fist violence and one F-word.