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.

Sleepwalking came out Tuesday the 15th from Alliance Films.  And while I want to like it, and I want to recommend it, I just can’t.  It’s a movie that almost gets there and almost succeeds, but in this case a near-miss is as good as a mile.  You know, horseshoes and hand grenades and so forth.  It’s the story of Tara Reedy, a young girl played by Annasophia Robb, whose mother Joleen (Charlize Theron) is a pretty awful mom.  After her boyfriend is arrested on drug charges, Joleen and Tara are evicted from their house and have no place to go.  They move in with Joleen’s brother James (Nick Stahl), but after a couple of days Joleen is gone.  She has taken off on her daughter, leaving her stuck with James, who has no idea what to do with a 12-year-old child.

The relationship between Stahl and Robb is a great one.  It is awkwardly sweet, tender yet clueless.  And while initially he is the one making all the sacrifices for her, and she’s kind of the twelve-year-old jerk, eventually she comes around and helps him as much as he helps her.  Stahl is terrific as the unstable, meek loser of an uncle, and Annasophia Robb is absolutely wonderful as the young girl.  (You might remember her from her terrific performance in Bridge To Terabithia.)  Theron is great as the absentee filthy neglectful possible-prostitute mother.  Which means the movie feels like it’s building toward something intense.  Something that reveals the whole story, that explains Joleen and James and why they now are the way they are.

And it seems like this moment is coming.  James has lost his job, has been evicted from his place, and has nowhere to go with young Tara, so he takes her on a road trip to see his dad (and Joleen’s) at his farm a few states over.  We know that this will lead to a watershed moment, either a reconciliation with a father that has been wronged, or a confrontation with a father that has wronged his kids.  We don’t really know until we get there.  And when we do get there, the final resolution is, in a way, even more intense that we would have expected.  And, in another way, much less intense.  You see, the father is played by Dennis Hopper.  And unfortunately, he portrays the father as a complete cartoon character. 

The entire film, up until that point, hinged on the father.  Every other character has deep issues and serious damage, all of which can be traced back to this father.  Stahl, Robb, and Theron have all turned in deeply nuanced, wonderfully emotional performances to this point.  Things are hinted at but never said.  And now here comes the big resolution where we find out for sure what has happened…and Hopper shows up as Dr. Evil from Austin Powers!  I don’t think this is his fault.  I think his character was written that way and that this is how the movie was supposed to go.  And when we get that major, watershed moment, it’s a far more over-the-top intense scene than we could ever have imagined.  And yet - the questions we have remain unanswered!

This is a movie that I think gives it’s audience an awful lot of credit.  Thinking that just hinting at certain things and creating damaged characters is enough for us to piece together, for ourselves, just what this father did.  And we probably can.  But the lack of a real resolution with acutal confirmation of our suspicions left me feeling ripped off.  The final scenes all of a sudden feel unnecessary, rather than a real climax.  And that means we sat through the rest of the movie for almost nothing.  With so many good performances and so much development leading up to this big final showdown, we needed more.  A lot more.