1. Brian O'Conner Fast & Furious (2001-2015)
The Fast And The Furious films should not be as good as they are. They almost certainly shouldn't have garnered so many sequels, with the first movie capitalising on a renewal of interest in custom car culture and underground street racing this was the same era as Need For Speed and Pimp My Ride by putting together a fairly basic story about an undercover cop trying to catch a racer form pulling off a major heist. Instead it blossomed into one of the most inventive, insane and gloriously, joyfully ridiculous film franchises in history. The magic of the Fast And Furious formula is that it never takes itself too seriously, whilst also never winking at the camera, and making sure every frame is fun. Plus it has on of the most multi-cultural casts in Hollywood, natch. Brian O'Conner being Paul Walker's definitive performance shouldn't be seen as a slight, or a suggestion he was limited in his abilities. Across seven films he turned a generic character into one with genuine pathos, a messy history, equally complex motivations, all whilst juggling action scenes which ranged form car chases to Bourne-style on foot pursuits. As Brian O'Conner, Walker did everything some action heroes struggle to master even one aspect of. He was engaging, funny, witty, sad, and most of all...really damn cool.
Tom Baker
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Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
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