Five the Hard Way

I saw this movie as featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, under the title "The Sidehackers." I'm used to these bad movies having lots of different titles (Heck the alternate titles to Plan 9 make more sense than the real one), but "Five The Hard Way"? That doesn't even come up in the movie. That makes it sound like it's a card game.

The Sidehackers is a much better title for this dreadful movie, cause it features the ultra-underground sport known as "sidehacking" (or as I call it sidehackin' with an apostrophe, much cooler that way). A sidehack, or uh yeah I guess that's what you'd call it, is a motorcycle with a sidecar. The sidecar is actually just a platform with a bar so a person (Unlucky and no doubt highly stupid) can stand on this thing and lean left and right in the turns to "balance the car out." You could have also tried just getting rid of the sidecar altogether. But hey then I guess there'd be no title, and they'd have to call it something ridiculous like Five The Hard Way.

Eventually these wacky racers get embroiled in a plot that involves murder, revenge, and idiocy. Basically it's a downer, and by the end most of the characters are dead (In this film, the more sympathetic you are the likely you are to get offed). I'm not sure what I was supposed to take out of the film, except maybe that good doesn't always win, or maybe that ESPN's X Games have a lot more to answer for than I thought.

I would not watch this movie again without the help of the MST3K crew. It's pretty terrible, and after the first couple of racing scenes, isn't the least bit cheesy (Dumb throughout, but not cheesy), and it's really a bit of a downer. That and the hat the main character Rommel (You know a character's in trouble when he's named after half of the rant the Hamburgler shouts) is absolutely ridiculous. I hope I get one for my birthday this year.

Some movies are badly made but somehow charming in their incompetence. Some movies are disturbing but thought-provoking. Some movies just plain stink, but are good for a laugh if you're sitting around with your buddies altering your brain chemistry with substances of varying degrees of legality.

Then there's "Sidehackers", starring Ross Hagen, the Budget Steve McQueen, who wears a ridiculous little hat, and races a motorcycle with a funny side car (the "sidehacking" of the title). Budget Steve also likes to frolic in the tall grass and grunt and gurgle and murmur with his adoring fiancee, the lovely Rita. But when B.S. gets on the wrong side of J.C. (Michael Pataki, who usually plays Cold-War-era Soviet bad guys of various types), he gets the beating of his life. As for Rita, ... well, I just would rather not talk about that. Anyway, Budget Steve vows revenge, and....

Oh, what's the point! This movie is so devoid of any meaning, it doesn't really even matter what happens next. Suffice to say that I've seen sick films, violent films, and gruesome films, but I've never seen anything as pointlessly nihilistic as this one. Sartre would be bummed out watching this movie!

Incredibly, Joel & the 'bots managed to make a side-splittingly funny MST300 episode out of this one. Guess it just goes to show you - existential nausea makes for great comedy!

The Sidehackers, what can be said about this movie? After viewing it, not much. I would like to know whose bright idea it was to make a movie about motorcycle racing, and then ditch that idea altogether. Things start out bad, and it all goes down hill. Rommel (that magnificent SOB) enjoys the sport of sidehacking. Along comes J.C. who asks Rommel to ride with him on the circuit. Rommel declines and J.C. goes nuts. Starts talking about how he loved him, and how he treated Rommel like a brother. J.C.'s girlfriend comes on to Rommel, and after he turns her down, she calls him an SOB. Rommel's girlfriend is killed by J.C. and Rommel enlists the aid of a strong man, a bad joke telling hick, and Nero former emperor of Rome to find J.C. Well, they find him, Rommel and J.C. tussle and finally someone dies. The end. Now, why couldn't this have happened about fifty minutes earlier?

I say that the only way to watch this film is the MST 3000 version of it. I wouldn't say that it ranks #1 on my bad film-o-meter (THAT honor goes to Manos: The Hands of Fate), but it's bad.

The biggest yawnfest are the racing sequences. Are those guys foolproof, or did they just edit out all of the crashes?

The subplot isn't that great either. I'd describe it, but I want you to see how bad this film is for yourself, preferably the MST3K version. Everyone loves Joel, The Gumball Man (Tom), and Bird Beaked Boy (Crow)!

1/5 stars *

This film is brutal, boring and just plain cheesy. It's technically two movies smashed together, the first is the entire "sidehacking" bit and the second is a murder story where Rommel's girlfriend is graphicly killed and he has to get back at J.C. someplace in the mountains with some other guys, including, a drunken hillbilly who tells bad jokes such as "Number 8!" And the ending makes no sense at all. The title "Five the Hard Way" doesn't seem to make sense to those who never heard of the song therefore labeling it dated. The alternate title of this film is "The Sidehackers" even though "sidehacking" is only seen in the first five minutes.

Avoid this stinker at all costs, unless of course, it's the Mystery Science Theater 3000 variation, which is one of the funniest episodes.