Ride

A rather dull start before the event that changed the story. Like the drive itself the plot went on a meandering, eventless journey to nowhere in particular. It didn't even end. No thrills, no shocks, no plot twists. Acting was OK, even the dialogue was alright. It was dull, causing no offence nor any excitement. Everything was guessable. Read a good book instead of watching this.

Immediately, I felt this was going to be a low budget film that is wasting my time. But knowing that some of the best films are done in one location or with as few as one actor, I wanted to give it a chance. Obviously, it held my interest enough, laying crumbs that I wanted to follow. But in the end (literally) we are left asking "You're kidding me?" The producer and writer had too much they wanted to imply, and therefore could not decide on any one direction. The film suffers for this. I would have liked to see it take a more dramatic turn of some kind after the many startling moments that amount to virtually nothing. I mean, maybe the girl and the killer were partners, or maybe the driver and the girl were playing people and ran up on the wrong guy. But instead, the producers insisted on trying to make it more relevant than artistic. I wouldn't say don't watch it, but it's really one of those that will most appeal to Uber and Lyft passengers who have a crush on one of the actors. My other gripe would be: why is it called Ride instead of Ryde (the name of the uber-style company)? That made it very difficult to find when trying to read or post reviews. I actually had to look i up by the actor's name. And if I could post one more gripe: It's very annoying to see reviews that start with a quite synopsis of the film. We are not interested in the outline, we just want your opinion of the film itself. Please don't start with "We see James, a L.A. driver just wanting to become an actor... " We already know that and it just wastes everyone's time.

Lame and not at all believable. I didn't like the hype the preview is the whole movie. No real action and suspense.

The concept is interesting but the plot holes ruined the movie. One in particular was just plain dumb. Without doing a spoiler, lets just say he could have easily ended the situation at least 3 times and didn't. I guess they needed to fill more screen time.

'Ride' did have a cool cover and an interesting idea going for it. The low rating and negative reviews did make it apprehensive admittedly, but as someone who always gives every film that interests me or comes my way a fair chance with an open mind it was seen anyway.

While not a complete waste of time, 'Ride' is not my definition of a good film. To me, there was a lot wrong with it and it is a very weak film in general. 'Ride' does not deliver on any promise it had, which may not have been massive but the film was hardly devoid of it, and was the complete opposite of what it could have been. This is being said with no malice, bias or prejudice (actually with regret), part of me wanted to not be as bad as has been said and have been known quite a few times, especially in my early years as a reviewer here, to go against the grain in not caring for a positively reviewed film or liking a panned one.

There are good things. The music is not obvious or intrusive and didn't feel at odds with the rest of the film. Visually, 'Ride' is reasonably slick and doesn't look too cheap.

While the acting is hardly great, the actors do do their best and their performances came over as committed and not overdone.

Unfortunately, the script and especially the story brings 'Ride' down. The script is very awkward sounding and doesn't flow, some of it is very difficult to take seriously. The story is excessively dull and has no surprises, tension or suspense. Instead it is ridiculous and implausible, with so many intelligence-insulting moments and parts that don't make sense or make one throw a hissy fit in confusion.

On top of that, the ending is extremely abrupt, it ends just like that with no resolution and gives the sense that the film was left incomplete. The characters irritate and there are frequent instances of them behaving without any logic or intelligence, could not believe that the film had characters behaving so stupidly, vaguely and illogically.

Summing up, weak. 3/10 Bethany Cox