The Wild Ride

This early Jack Nicholson film sees him playing Johnny Varron; a would-be motor racer who, when he isn't on the track, likes nothing better than playing chicken on the public highways. If others get hurt he isn't concerned. In the opening scene he causes a police motorcyclist to crash; he is fairly casual about it as the police can't prove he was involved. He hangs out with friends who share his attitudes however tensions in their group is rising because they think Johnny's friend Dave is dating the wrong girl. Inevitably their actions will have consequences.

This isn't a great film; it was never meant to be. It is an exploitation film centred on some fairly unsympathetic characters and the plot is far from deep. That isn't to say it is bad though; there are some exciting scenes, most notably the race sequence. The interaction between Johnny and his friends feels a little forced; perhaps because the sixties language feels dated or perhaps because it is what the writers thought young people spoke like. Jack Nicholson does a solid job as Johnny; it isn't his best work by a long way but he has the right attitude for the character; there is a sense of danger about him which fitted the role. The rest of the cast are more mixed; some good some rather less so. Overall this is a decent film that I'd recommend to those who are interesting in older films that aren't classics.

These comments are based on watching the original black and white, sixty minute version of the film not the longer, colourised 'Velocity'.

While in 1960 Jack Nicholson was still relatively unknown here he gives his first leading man performance tho the movie was a quickly forgotten misfire. And that was reason enough for me for watching it last October.

Johnny Varron (Nicholson) is a larger than life punk that spends his nights organizing wild parties and his days racing on a dirt track and ending in trouble to the point of killing a policeman, kidnap the girlfriend of one of his friends and seeing another of his friends ending in tragedy.

The reason why this is a dud it's because in the first half was decent with Nicholson giving a decent leading man performance but in the last 20 minutes it became dull because of all the trouble his character caused. Besides, the race scenes weren't that exciting to watch as those seen in better race movies such as DAYS OF THUNDER.

Overall, a very limp film of interest probably only for three types of viewers: 1) Nicholson completists (2) fans of old movies (3) fans of bad movies because they can get a kick out of it.

I picked this movie up cheap out of a bargain bin. It is a double feature disc with "The Little Shop of Horrors." When I started watching it I was shocked to find that "Velocity," which I knew was circa 1960, started off with a relatively new-looking scene of kids driving dangerously. It seems that Vina Distributor (who put out this double feature edition) or somebody decided to "update" the old teen flick with some footage of more relevant "street punks."

The bad "modern" teen meets a dude in a bar who looks a little like Jack Nicholson but doesn't sound anything like him (I guess Jack has better things to do these days, unlike these cutters) who tells him the story of his young life. THEN we get into "Velocity," which is all that the other reviews here promised.

Jack is so young that one might not recognize him at first. This was only his second role and he was 23 years old in 1960. It is pretty funny and I gave it two stars for the yuks, but it is atrociously dated. The version I have is colorized.

I see on IMDb that "Velocity" is the video title and "The Wild Ride" was the original name of the film. Maybe it was renamed "Velocity" after the bizarre framing segments were added.

This is an exploitation flick meant to entertain and perhaps teach us about the dangers of angry young beatniks with fast cars. Jack Nicholson stars as a larger than life punk who has a group of loyal young idiots who follow him with almost cult-like devotion. And, when one of the members DOESN'T, it ultimately spells disaster.

"The Wild Ride" was very low budget throughout and looks it. Aside from a very good performance by Nicholson as an angry jerk, the rest of the cast are uniformly bland. Also the story suffers because it is neither florid and 'racy' enough to be salacious nor is it ever especially believable. So, if you are a bad movie fan, it's just not bad enough to be especially entertaining and everyone else would just be pretty bored by it. But, on the positive side, it's not an embarrassment for Nicholson or any of the rest of the cast to be in this rather limp film.

Sure, the first reason to see The Wild Ride (or, unfortunately as it sounds, the 're-cut' Velocity which for some insane reasons extends the story) is for Jack Nicholson. It's arguably his very first 'bad-boy' role in a career with more than enough to go around. He's still got a long way to go from here, but it's fun seeing him go practically method about his character Johnny (apparently Nicholson just started with Martin Landau at the time as his teacher), as he tries to sway Robert Bean's Dave from going the not-hip route with a girl who isn't part of 'their scene' as it were. There's tension, there's some fall-out, and in the end there's some overly high pitched melodrama following a chase down a road. Nearly embarrassing to admit it, but for those who will seek out the movie for that reason, as I did, it's not that bad (as in *as bad* as some of his other B-movie work like The Terror and Rebel Rousers).

Hell, I'll even give one-time-only director Harvey Berman some credit: for a picture that's main dramatic thrust is dictated mostly by the same beef between Biff and the McFly's in the Back to the Future movies ("What's wrong? Chicken?" "Nobody calls me chicken!"), the Wild Ride does provide the cheapest thrills necessary with a picture that (thankfully) doesn't even run an hour's length of time. It gives a halfway decent race-car sequence, and some nifty music in the end climax (if not, of course, throughout). There's even an oddly coincidental opening bit to the movie with that of Breathless, also released in 1960, with a rebel and a cop on his trail (albeit this on takes itself seriously, while Godard's parody).

It's a silly bit of teens-and-hot-rods exploitation that is still riding out whatever fuel is left from the 50s via the Wild One and James Dean. It's tender moments are like tender cuts of lamb, and its dialog is as pulpy as a moldy orange. And shame on me, perhaps, for almost liking this diddle of a B-movie; at the least it features something I've never seen before in another movie I can think of, which is a guy working at a liquor store asking if the young man Johnny has ID, he says yes, guy asks to see it, and Johnny says a simple 'No.' 5.5/10