Sometimes, even The A.V. Club isn't impervious to the
sexy allure of ostensible cultural garbage. Which is why there's I Watched This
On Purpose, our feature exploring the impulse to spend time with trashy-looking
yet in some way irresistible entertainments, playing the long odds in hopes of
a real reward. And a good time.
Cultural infamy: Hell Ride was barely a blip on the
cultural radar, but even that blip was poop-colored. Almost no one saw this
2008 movie, and those who did really didn't care for it. It has a lowly red 25
at Metacritic.com, with words like "cliché" (TV Guide), "no fun" (L.A. Times), and "witless" (The
A.V. Club)
being doled out without remorse. As I walked into Keith's office (he's the one
who called it "witless") and told him I'd be in the official A.V. Club screening room for the
next 90 minutes or so with Hell Ride, he said cheerfully, "I don't think you're going
to like it!"
Curiosity factor: But still, there's that
nagging sense in me somewhere that this could be a supercharged piece of shitty
entertainment. In big letters above the title, it says "Quentin Tarantino
Presents"—a phrase that should hold no cultural value at this point in
history, but somehow still does. (Have you watched Reservoir Dogs lately? Guess
what—still fucking awesome.) All I know about the plot of Hell Ride going in is that it's
about badass bikers who do badass things. Michael Madsen stars as "The Gent,"
which has some promise right there, and Vinnie Jones (the big baddie from Lock,
Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and X-Men 3) is often entertaining. One minus: Hell
Ride was
written and directed by and stars Larry Bishop, whom I knew nothing about
except that he's apparently some sort of Tarantino hanger-on. But that's okay,
I learned more about him through his film.
The viewing experience: The critics were right, as
it turns out. That doesn't necessarily mean anything—critics are often
right about a movie being crappy, while still failing to mention the joys of shitty
movies—but in this case, they were right that there's very little joy to
be had in this sloppy mess. Not enough action, not enough killin', very little
attention to an overcomplicated story. To make up for it? Boobs. Hundreds and
hundreds of boobs. Mostly fake, mostly naked boobs. Everywhere. But even if
that's your thing, you will probably be able to find a better naked-boob
delivery system at the video store, one that doesn't revolve around the world's
most overacted biker gang.
I need to jump to the end here very quickly,
because watching "The Making Of Hell Ride" (a bonus feature on the DVD) really
opened my eyes to a lot of things. While the scenes were unfolding, I couldn't
help but think, "How in hell did someone give this no-name, horrible actor the
resources to write, direct, and star in a movie that clearly cost more than a
nickel to make?" And the answer came to me in this gripping documentary: Bishop
used to make biker movies in the '60s, and those biker movies were fetishized
and blown out of reasonable proportion by Quentin Tarantino. Apparently
Tarantino connected with Bishop a few years ago and told him, "It's your
destiny to make the greatest biker movie of all time." Bishop took this very,
very seriously, apparently not realizing that a coke-fueled Tarantino spends
most of his day waxing similarly hyperbolic to everyone he meets. (To the
Dunkin' Donuts guy: "It's your destiny to make the greatest tall black coffee
of all time!" To the meter maid: "Remember those parking tickets you used to
give out in 1968 at the drive-in? You should do those again!")
But Bishop, son of Rat Packer Joey Bishop, took
Tarantino's praise as a directive to make "art." And when the attempt to make
art collides with the absolute inability to make art (and when it's coupled
with the overwhelming belief in the greatness of your art), hilarity can often
ensue. Hell Ride
is terrible in many, many ways, but the most glaringly obvious way is that it
stars Larry Bishop as a badass biker whom everybody's supposed to be afraid of.
But Larry Bishop is a nearly 60-year-old Jew from Philly, and also not a good
actor. Having him play the role of Pistolero—the centerpiece of his
drama, and a person who's supposed to have so much gravitas that every woman
wants to fuck him and every man fears him—was a ridiculous idea. Every
second Bishop is onscreen, he's chewing up everything around him. He makes
co-stars Michael Madsen and Dennis Hopper look intricately subtle. Bishop
always clenches his jaw in some weird impersonation of Don Corleone that's
supposed to be badass, but is instead hilarious. His performance almost makes
the movie worth watching—and when you couple it with his interviews in
the bonus material, it probably is.
But on to the movie itself, a confused jumble of
lame fights and bare breasts. Bishop is the leader of a gang, and there are
some other gangs (one led by Vinnie Jones), and apparently they're at war over
something, but we're never sure what. We get a lot of flashbacks revealing the
murder of a Comanche babe, who gets her throat slit and is set on fire on July
4, 1976. The flashbacks are insanely Tarantino-esque; if his name weren't on
this thing, it wouldn't be called an homage, it would be called a rip-off.
The only hope for actual enjoyment comes from
Madsen, who's introduced here in a scene with Bishop. It's almost like Bishop's
bad acting rubs off on him:
And then we get introduced to that tall kid from Six
Feet Under,
Eric Balfour, who's part of Bishop and Madsen's gang—a newbie who has
quickly earned Bishop's trust. It's painfully obvious from the first flashback
that's he's probably also Bishop's long-lost… yawn… son. Early on, they go on a
murder spree, with Madsen actually commanding a great scene in which he kills
everybody in a house, not letting his buddies get a chance at them. Of course,
he and his friends walk away from the house as it explodes in flame behind them. They
don't flinch.