Hell Ride

I have had more boring stretches of 80 minutes in my life, but none are coming to mind right now. Hell Ride is based on the retro cult 70s theme that Tarantino brought back, and did right, in movies like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. The problem with Hell Ride is, unlike PF and RD, the story is garbage and so is character development. How many movies does Bishop think he can blatantly steal from? The brief case in Pulp Fiction, the air gun in No Country, etc. etc. Speaking of Bishop what the hell is he doing acting in this movie? I couldn't help but laugh at those scenes where he's standing with his pelvis trusted out, desperately trying to seem like some hardened biker. Nothing in this movie is believable. And why Dennis Hopper? Did they really need the Easy Rider motif too? I blame Larry Bishop, for his horrible plot and dialogue, not to mention his failed attempt at the leading role. Don't bother watching this movie, it's a waste of time.

Director/lead Larry Bishop tried way, way too hard with Hell Ride. The movie wants to be edgy, witty, provocative, outlandish, biting all of this, seemingly in a Quentin Tarantino/Rob Zombie style. But it's not edgy. The references seem forced. The dialog tries to be clever and fails. The humor is never funny. Nice try setting a gritty tone but we'd have to care about the characters or the story for it to remotely succeed.

What you're left with are cool Harleys and pretty girls surrounding a bunch of tired, old and out of shape "bad boys" in what looks like an attempt to do a modernized Sergio Leone western. If this movie can make newer generations interested in 60s and 70s films, kudos for it. But on its own, it is rather boring and irrelevant. I do believe there is a place for style over substance. But this movie is not it.

To say this movie is bad would be to simplify matters to the extreme and with the exception of Hell Ride's plot, nothing in this life is that simple.

So what's wrong with it exactly... Larry Bishop. The guy must have balls the size of two small dogs to think he could pull this off. Bikes, beer and booty makes for one great cocktail but bikes, beer, booty and bishop... not so good.

The story is interesting, the theme is great, the cast, characters and acting are over the top but welcome, hell, even the directing is good but Larry, why did you have to put yourself in it as the lead? Casting yourself as the lead is a step too far. This isn't going to get you any leading actor roles but will most certainly deem you to a life of character bit parts and walk ons. Larry successfully delivers some of the most ham-fisted dialogue in the most atrocious of displays of acting ever witnessed on celluloid. I can't even bring myself to disgust the batman-esq vocal shenanigans but it's poor.

I am beginning to meander almost as badly as this movie. So in a nutshell: Great cast, great concept, compelling direction, terrible, terrible lead acting.

Well, I found this movie great. Not spectacular, but great.

If you're a fan of the grindhouse, B-movie genre then this is definitely the movie for you. A simple story, with interesting dialogue people penalise this movie for the fact that the dialogue is bland, the acting is amatueristic. However, one thing you have to take into consideration when watching Hell Ride is: it's not meant to be a blockbuster. Nor will it ever be, it's just a fun 84 minute biker flick. Eric Balfour delivered a brilliant performance as Bix/Comanche. Michael Madson, as always, was an amazing choice for his role.

Now, Larry Bishop...

He's not such a brilliant actor. As many people will agree with me, he should spend more time behind the camera rather than playing the lead role.

The setting was great, the cheesy peyote tripping worked well and the cameo performances of Dennis Hopper and David Carradine fitting in nicely.

If you don't like the B-movie genre, explicit dialogue or guns and mud wrestling then this isn't the movie for you.

Otherwise, enjoy :)

If you are easily offended by nudity or swearing, maybe you shouldn't watch this. Actually you shouldn't watch this period! On the other hand it is one of the last (if not the last) movie you can watch the late Hopper and the late Carradine together in one movie. Of course there is one scene with Carradine that might make you cringe, especially if you know the circumstances of his own death.

But there is one other thing that might leave you baffled. It's the story. The fact that you might not be able to follow it through from start to finish. It doesn't even matter that you have a "McGuffin" in there (a very obvious one). What you do get, is a very confident and good Michael Madsen (QT producing might have again brought out the best in him, with a scene on a tree that does look very ad-libbed).

Overall this movie does have a fascination to it (a weird one, that has nothing to do with all the female nudity, though this might make the movie either more or less appealing to you). Not good, but not a bad one either ...