Hell Ride: Critic Reviews

It's a claustrophobic dud, full of ludicrously purple tough-guy dialogue and lip-smacking vamps in bikinis (how hot!), with so much monotonous hip violence there's scarcely room for anything else.

[Director Larry Bishop] burdens his film with clumsy art-house ambitions that clash with its embrace of bikes, beer and booty. If any of this sounds amusing, be warned: it's not.

The whole thing feels like the sort of picture Tarantino would make if he weren't such an ingenious B-movie artist: a genre exercise that's more studious than entertaining.

Street cred can't save this pic, not even with Dennis Hopper and David Carradine cameos, and QT himself exec-producing and initiating the project.

Where the biker films of the late '60s and early '70s offered edgy, amusingly cheesy thrills, this sputtering effort is as rusty as an unrestored Triumph Bonneville.

The movie was executive produced by Quentin Tarantino. Shame on him. He intends it no doubt as another homage to grindhouse pictures, but I've seen a lot of them, and they were nowhere near this bad. Hell's Angels on Wheels, for example: pretty good.

For a grindhouse throwback that works, try Tarantino's Death Proof (the shorter version). That one delivered; Hell Ride gets a flat 10 minutes in and goes floop-floop-floop the rest of the way.

As cheesy as the American-International biker flicks of the 60s were, they had a raw vitality missing from this self-conscious tribute.

As the film's triple-threat writer/director/star, Bishop isn't noticeably talented.

The result is, predictably and enjoyably, old-fashioned macho mayhem with a post-modern twist. This movie knows it's ridiculous. Heck, it's proud to be ridiculous.

Thesps (even toplining helmer, who's a strapping 60 years old) have nothing to work with, though one hopes they had fun riding about the desert.

The dialog is clever, nutty and syncopated, with a soundtrack -- of the "C.C. Rider" vein -- which ain't half-bad, either.

Does it count against you when you actually set out to make an awful movie? It should.

Nostalgia is a poor foundation for any movie, and the film's visceral pleasures are too limited to effectively compensate for the lack of credible characters or a coherent storyline.

Even on its own terms, Hell Ride lacks sufficient substance to be of more than quickly passing interest for all but the most devoted fans.

The film gets the scummy patina right, all phony-Leone dusty trails, but while everybody on screen looks to be enjoying themselves, it is no fun to watch.

Bikers, babes, blood, booze ... and blah.

Hell Ride is a smoldering yet completely dull wreck of a movie.

Instead of a sublimely ridiculous and sleazy bike-movie homage, Bishop delivers self-amused, emptily crude faux-grindhouse that only fanatics of the genre will excuse.

A revenge and biker warfare bonanza that will appeal to the folks who loved masterpieces like "The Warriors" and "Switchblade Sisters"...

Having a properly slimy bit of modern exploitation filmmaking isn't something to scoff at, but I do wish that the experience had even a bit of fizz to it.