Corridas Clandestinas

I'm sure there's a Greek tragedy or Shakespeare play with the same basic premise: Son aspires to be one of the great princes instead of a courtier, son loses father, son disappears, only to return as the heir apparent to the Prince's crown and all that.... such a plot has such promise.

But when you bury it under a bunch of expensive sportbikes, T&A shots, and juvenile stunts... blech!

As a moviegoer, I thought this was barely worth the matinee price. As a Shakespeare fan, I thought it overdone, washed out. As a motorcyclist, I thought it shameful (Passengers in shorts, spaghetti-strap tops, and heels? Racing w/o helmets? Stunting on a public freeway, in traffic, at night? These are NOT the role models you were looking for...) I will point out that a FEW lines in the movie did hint to the dangers of riding, especially 'extreme' riding. The crashes were definitely hopped up (not sure if a 500 lb superbike would sail spinning thru the air like a frisbee...) but no punches were pulled as to how badly you can get hurt on these things if you're not careful and FOCUSED. And Fishbourne's character, although definitely the most bad-ass in the whole bunch, showed how far skill, finesse, and restraint will go beyond blind luck, guts, and adrenaline. That is to say, he was on top the whole time, even to the last frame.

With the budget this film had (pretty much, the bikes alone are each worth 20G's or more) they COULD have made something with more emotional impact, more story, and a LOT less gratuitous teenage hormone inducer. So, if you see this movie, resist the impulse to go out and get a bike. The real world ain't like this at all. Riding like this in the real world will get someone (probably YOU) killed.

Lots of whacky dialogue makes for very low under the bus film like Biker Boyz, definitely watchable though! I like how I was 10 when the trailer came out damn I miss being little! Decent cast, soundtrack, and drama; I give it credit where it's earned.

If you want to see a pointless story, dragged out over a full 1hour 50 minute film, then check this out, I can honestly get what was the plan, fast and furious but on bikes instead, but every moment you feel a story is coming or we might be getting somewhere with this film, it is simply either forgotten, or just falls flat. I would have said the only redeeming part was the fact Laurence fishburne had been involved in the project, but even his storyline is just dull. If we could have a son of anarchy type of film mixed to fast & furious then this could have worked, but this is typical sort of films coming out in the early 2000's, still this film is better than Torque. I would say, if you want something on that pays no attention, something you want on when doing work, or just not actually watching the film just doing other things then check it out, but I wouldn't recommend actually watching the film, as the story itself as mentioned just isn't really there, several cliche are thrown in during the film. Good luck if you do choice to watch.

This movie is absolute rubbish. Not only is the plot incredibly predictable, but the realism is non-existent. As someone who's been riding street bikes for many years, I was horrified to see the characters racing with very powerful bikes on gravel roads, clearly smaller capacity bikes beating faster ones on a straight road where no real skill (apart from a good launch) is needed and one of only two female bikers in the movie suffering the usual lesbian stereotyping. I can almost see the movie executives sitting in an office and going "hey let's cash in on Fast & Furious by doing almost the exact same thing, but with bikes". Crap, rubbish and a waste of good actors' talent.

Kid is the son of Tariq aka "Slick Will", engineer to Smoke, who is the leader of the Black Knights motorcycle group and a legend on the streets. When Tariq is killed in a motorcycle accident, Kid drops off the scene for six months but returns determined to become more than just a prospect. His ultimate aim is to challenge Smoke himself and make his mark by taking down the biggest dog there is but first he must go legit and set up his own motorcycle gang with friends Stuntman and Primo.

Opening with a really nice tracking shot (or series of shots, I'm not sure) this film had my interest early on but very quickly blew it. With an obvious and predictable establishing scene, the narrative arch is established and thus I began my weary trudge from start to finish, through countless music video scenes, unconvincing dialogue scenes and loads of motorcycles. It is very basic stuff and it never aspires to much. The characters are cut out of cardboard and the dialogue is awful, this might cut the mustard if the film was an out and out action film but it isn't. Instead it is supposed to be a character driven film and thus it is a big problem for it to not have characters or convincing dialogue. Sadly it is a mess in regards the writing and plotting and only the forgiving will find the material worth two hours of their time.

The action is pretty weak. I didn't think any of the races were exciting and although they are well done, all of them could have sorely used the emotions of the characters to feed into them. As it is the failure of the plot means that much of the film is lacking and feels rather pointless. Occasionally it hints at depth and humanity but the occasional spark is totally drowned out in a sea of noise. The music video goals of the film are met but personally I'm glad not to be in the demographic sector that is tricked into thinking that this makes for a good film.

The cast are mixed, containing people that I expected better from and people that deserve stuff like this. Fishburne may well have expected more from the film because at times you can see him reaching, sadly he cannot achieve the impossible and any glimmer of a good performance is swamped. Luke struggles from the start. He is pretty and charismatic here but he can't deliver emotion and understanding that isn't in the script and his narration is terrible. The support cast are roundly average with obvious performances from Jones, Hounsou, Fehr and others. Good is sexy but pretty vacant while I'm not sure why Bonet bothered to turn up for so little.

Overall then a fairly pointless film that shrugs off any character potential it may have had in favour of MTV visuals, clunky dialogue and mostly average performances at best. You can see the potential in the story but across several aspects the film fails to deliver this potential and just churns out a totally unnecessary film that doesn't deserve any of your time.