Cynical Cinema

Alliance Films is releasing Hell Ride on October 28th, and I really had no idea what to make of this movie. It’s a campy biker movie in the style of the silly B-movies of the 60s and 70s. It makes little sense, it’s gruesome and violent, the characters are weird and badly drawn, the dialogue is cheesy and silly, and yet…I really enjoyed it. Part of it is the actors. Michael Madsen plays a gunfighter named “The Gent”. He’s a biker who wears frilly shirts and cracks jokes. Most of the fun lines in the movie belong to Madsen and Dennis Hopper, who is totally in his element as a half way crazy old biker named “Eddie Zero” who may still be the toughest guy around. It’s a cross between his role in Easy Rider and his unforgettable scene with Christopher Walken in True Romance.

The genesis of Hell Ride was a day when Tarantino had Larry Bishop over to his house to watch a print of The Savage Seven, a violent biker B-movie from 1968.  They realized that there hadn’t been a real biker movie in decades.  Which maybe was a good thing.  But the next thing they did was to create Hell Ride, a genuine biker B-movie directed by Bishop and produced by Tarantino.  It was to be (and certainly is) a throwback, a tribute to the silly yet entertaining biker movies of the 60s and 70s.  Like Hells Angels On Wheels, or Angel Unchained.

Joining Madsen in the cast are two other alumni of Tarantino’s Kill Bill. Larry Bishop plays “Pistolero”, the leader of the Victors motorcycle gang. And David Carradine shows up for a memorable scene as “The Deuce”, a character who is never fully explained but who gets his anyway. Eric Balfour from 24 plays “Comanche”, and Vinnie Jones is terrific as “Billy Wings”, the leader of the bad-guy biker gang. The basic plot (in as much as there is one) of the film revolves around Pistolero, Comanche and The Gent trying to retrieve a safety deposit box from Billy Wings to make good on a promise that Pistolero made to a woman many years ago. This leads to a biker war, complete with gunfights, beheadings, torture, brutal murders, a few slit throats and several people set on fire. Oh, and also strippers, boobs, and one of the most awkward, uncomfortable and unsexy attempts at being sexy by Leonor Varela, one of the hottest women in the world. Her strip-tease moment on a pool table must be seen to be believed. It is absolutely hilarious. I’m not really sure whether it was supposed to be.

The best thing about Hell Ride, however, is the dialogue. Here is an example of the type of dialogue contained in this bonkers screenplay, to the best of my recollection:

“That’s none of your business.”
“I’m making it my business.”
“It’s my business to make sure it doesn’t become your business.”
“Who entrusted you with that?”
“That’s my business.”
“OK. Let’s get down to business.”

Seriously, that is what a large portion of this movie sounds like. Then there’s a long exchange between Varela and Bishop about firemen and putting out fires and fire retardant materials and fireproof materials and fighting fire with fire. It is absolutely bonkers, it is terrible dialogue, but it is idiotic on purpose. These characters think they are being totally badass and clever by saying these things, but we, the audience, understand that this is some pretty stupid stuff to be saying. And it just adds to the wonderfully campy feel of the movie. And that is just what Hell Ride is. Wonderfully campy nonsense. Bloody, violent, badass nonsense. And it’s totally enjoyable.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 1:50 pm and is filed under B movie, Michael Madsen, Biker, David Carradine, Eric Balfour, Quentin Tarantino, Larry Bishop, Action, Dennis Hopper, Leonor Varela, Vinnie Jones, 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.