Hell Ride (2008) Movie Review

Quentin Tarantino is a force to be reckoned with, and not just because of the fact that he is a household name having directed only a handful of films but even more so because of the influence that those films have had on the film industry. For a while there seemed numerous Tarantino influenced crime films, and it should be of no surprise that Tarantino’s joint effort with Robert Rodriguez to duplicate the 70s grindhouse theater experience would be duplicated itself. Tarantino even seems aware of how hopelessly devoted to imitating him that he even plastered his name on Larry Bishop’s indulgent Hell Ride. Hell Ride is a perfect name for this vanity piece written, directed and starring Bishop, which is offensive to film lovers and human kind in general.

Larry Bishop is Pistolero, the leader of a bike gang that is in a feud with another biker gang. Eric Balfour is Comanche, a young biker with revenge on his mind and questions about his past and Michael Madsen is The Gent, a sociopath biker who always wears a tuxedo and shoots too fast to leave any work for his two friends. These three are on an inevitable path that must lead to the other gang’s sociopath, Billy Wings (Vinnie Jones), whose descriptions of his tattoos might have been more entertaining if I hadn’t been concerned for the actresses being molested during the scene. Dennis Hopper is one saving grace of the film as an older biker, but even he can’t save the directionless sex and violence. It is simply a pleasure to watch one actor who understands independent film and knows how to have fun with it. The others take the dribble so seriously that they are literally shooting themselves in the foot.

The content of this film, however short and insignificant as it may seem, is remarkably offensive. Although I can appreciate the attempt to replicate the grindhouse films of the 1970s, which were often more gratuitous than the mainstream films, there is absolutely nothing redeemable about Hell Ride. If it were simply gratuitous and intelligent it may not have been a bad film, which is usually why Tarantino gets away with so much violence, but Hell Ride has the sensibility of a thirteen-year-old boy in every aspect. The dialogue and the action is continually repetitive without ever saying or doing anything coherently important, women are always available, nude and eager to become a toy for whatever man is nearby. The actors grope, fondle and lick the nubile actresses with such vigor and on such clear display that I actually felt sorry for the actresses involved.

Although the dialogue in Hell Ride is among the worst of all Tarantino duplicates I have ever experienced (so bad that it has to be seen just to believe), and I cared very little for what was said with confidence it would be repeated fifteen times before the end of the film, I was still amazed to see that there were times that women spoke and their heads weren’t even in frame so that the audience can linger on her backside for a moment longer. When there isn’t a half-naked, fully-naked, or oiled-up woman somewhere in frame, one of two things happen; men start fighting or killing, or they start speaking and you wish anything else would happen to make them stop. There aren’t words for how bad this dialogue is, and I am almost impressed that anyone, especially Tarantino who has a producing title, considered the possibility that it might be good enough. Or long enough. The only saving grace is that the film is hardly a feature film.