Riders - Amici per la morte

This is one of the most horrible movies I have ever seen. It tries to use the presently-in vogue formula of smart bad guy getting the gold. The plot is very twisty turny. It goes like this...

Three guys and a girl are out stealing banks using extreme sports talents. Action is okay, but after seeing movies like XXX, too much action has become somewhat boring. (A case of "If I see another idiot jumping over a two deck bus..."). Somehow they get into trouble with the police (gee, how is that possible?), a guy who stands in shadows and tortures them by keeping them in a really cold room, another guy who seems to be a cross between Elvis and a preacher (Horrors!).

I seriously don't know what Natasha Henstridge is for, oh wait.. I do. Those semi nude scenes. Even the love scenes suck cuz there is absolutely no chemistry.

The dialogues are cliched, the plot is cliched, the characters are cliched and the ending is cliched.

I loved Ocean's Eleven, but a hazard of its success seems to be the proliferation of crappy heist flicks that suck big time.

I used to really like Stephen Dorf, and thought he was doing weird but interesting movies. Then he did this one, and I don't think I'll ever be able to see that Aerosmith video again without grimacing.

Stay away from this one if you can't take boredom very well.

Overall rating 1/2

The movie is really good looking with a great visual style, that makes this a great genre movie to watch. But the movie has such an incredibly bad story and storytelling that the movie still manages to almost become unwatchable at times.

Not only just the story is simple and formulaic, it also is told in about the worst way possible. The story never flows well, which is probably also due to some bad editing. Seems like director Gérard Pirès only concentrated on the style and action of the movie and not on its story at all. Definitely a case of style over substance.

The story features lots of clichés and some highly unlikely moments, even for action movie standards and the movie also doesn't exactly become much better as the movie develops. The movie even gets truly ridicules at times. Too bad because with its style and cast involved, the movie really showed some potential.

The movie really has a great cast. Stephen Dorff is a great actor and he also even shows that in this movie. Bruce Payne goes way too much over-the-top with his role, which causes him to be an unlikely and not likable enough villain. Steven Berkoff is way better, in an also over-the-top but very fun role, as a Southern villain, with an Elvis-wig. It's a role you normally wouldn't expect from him. And thank goodness that Natasha Henstridge's role is smaller than she is credited with.

The action is fair enough. Definitely no big-budget kind of stuff but obviously also way better than the average B-action movie. The movie provides a couple of thrills and kicks. Some of the special effects are a bit too fake looking at times unfortunately.

A fair enough enjoyable guilty-pleasure to watch but don't forget to switch off your brain first.

5/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

A gang of four thieves rob a bank and use roller blades to escape from the cops. This is the first of several daring robberies they have planned – the second involving an armoured car and an underwater escape. When they pull that off they find that, not only do they get the cash they wanted but they have also stolen millions worth of bonds. Things look good for everyone as they know they will at least be able to get half their value through a shifty broker; meanwhile though they not only have to cope with the cops but also some other groups that want the gang for other reasons.

When this film started I immediately thought of a French short film called Argent Content which was a substanceless but enjoyable short about a bank robbery followed by a cool roller skate escape. That short was style over substance but the short running time saved it. However Riders moved past this copy and started to just lift lots of stuff from other films – Heat, Sneakers etc, all the genre clichés are forced into the movie but sadly nobody took the time to structure them into a worthwhile film that made any sense. So many things are thrown at the screen but they make no sense nor do they hang together. So we have stunts for the sake of stunts, characters that lack any motivation, a Heat-style relationship that appears as quickly as it disappears and a plot that is just all over the place. It isn't awful but it is just so inane you wonder how on earth anyone ever though it was a good idea.

The cast seem promising on paper but on film they are mostly confused and poor. Dorff is sexy and has good presence but he cannot make anything of his confused character – but he does look sexy nonetheless. Henstridge is also sexy but other than that you have to wonder how long she worked on the movie – all the rest of her scenes could have been done in a few days before getting sweaty with Dorff. The idea that their characters would have somehow had a Pacino/De Niro relationship is just laughable. Speaking of laughable, Bruce Payne is in this film and is terrible. However at least he is in the movie, which cannot be 100% said for Steven Berkoff who just appears to be in his entirely own, twisted little film. Bennett, Cliché and McCarthy are all reasonable in support but neither they nor anyone else can do anything with this shambles of a film.

The crazy style of Taxi might have worked once but Pires' attempts to do it again here just fall flat and it just falls flat on its face from the very start. Pointless and inane and will please only the very, very undemanding genre fan.

Wow,some reviewers are way too harsh for this movie. Riders doesn't pretend be to be anything more than it is. Honestly I sometimes really ask myself what people are expecting from a movie that clearly is only a setup for stunts and action. And the stunts that are presented in the movies are beautifully done. Of course the acting is bad and the story not surprising. But boy did I have fun watching this movie. And this fun factor is not something that should be overlooked so easily. The fact that this movie and the actors don't take matters so seriously should also count for something. Since there are a lot of similar themed movies that do take themselves serious and which aren't nearly as entertaining as Riders. People craving for french action themed movies a la Luc Besson (like Taxi,Yamaksi or Banlieu 13) will have a blast watching this movie.

Not the worst movie I've ever seen, but it might be the first one that I think is both too short and too long at the same time. These four robbery specialists manage to rob like four banks in ten days with minimal planning and the most impeccable timing in the history of the bank heist genre. At the same time, there is no back story on anyone (which in all honesty makes getting plot twists in a little easier), characters appear seemingly out of nowhere and then disappear again, plans are rewritten by the leader of the gang without informing anyone, and rules for the heists are broken pretty much as soon as they are stated.

I dunno, you'd probably do better picking something else to watch.