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When Hell Ride was released this past summer, it was universally panned, butchered, and bludgeoned by critics and audiences alike. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s nowhere near as bad as previous reviews have suggested.
Written, directed, and starring Larry Bishop, one of the early purveyors of the biker flick (like 1968’s The Savage Seven and 1970’s Angels Unchained), Hell Ride follows the exploits of biker gang The Victors and their leader, Pistolero (Bishop), as he seeks revenge for the 30-year-old murder of his young love by Billy Wings (Vinnie Jones) and The Deuce (played by B-movie icon David Carradine), two members of rival gang Six Six Six. Along the way, he gets some help from other rough-and-ready members of his gang. These include The Gent—played by the always reliable (yet always one-note) Michael Madsen—and brooding and hard-ass Comanche (Eric Balfour).
In fact, everyone in this movie is brooding and hard-ass. It’s no surprise, then, that this violent, R-rated mayhem is produced by the exploitation genre master himself, Quentin Tarantino. Hell Ride could even be a third entry in Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse series. All that’s needed is a damaged negative and a missing reel or two.
But I digress. So what really happens in the movie? Well, as I mentioned above, it’s a biker revenge flick, so there’s a surfeit of violence (although, honestly, not as much as in, say, Kill Bill) and many gratuitous shots of large-breasted women wrestling…or engaging in orgies…or just walking around naked at biker hangouts. In between these titillating visuals, we get some ambiguous, non-linear storytelling about murder and a biker’s word of honor to see right by the son of a murdered lover.
So what’s the downside? Well, some of the dialogue is, at times, self-consciously Tarantino-clever without actually being as clever as Tarantino; and, as already alluded to, the plot is a little hazy. But all is forgiven, because these guys look like they’re just having some good old exploitative B-movie fun. Bikes, beer, and booty, as Madsen announces at one stage of the action, are what his life is all about. Damn straight.
Sure, this type of flick doesn’t appeal to everyone—then again, neither did the classics of the genre—but there is an audience for it. Coming in at 83 minutes long, the flick doesn’t outstay its welcome. And while it’s not always coherent, the visuals (and I’m not talking about the nudity here) give the movie a sense of style—an actual (dare I say it) vision to the whole endeavor.
The DVD comes with some fun making-of documentaries on the babes of Hell Ride and the guys of Hell Ride. There’s also an enlightening director’s commentary, as well as Michael Madsen’s video diary.
Hell Ride may not be the greatest biker flick ever (that has to go to Easy Rider or The Wild Angels), but it fills the gap for those of us who enjoy this type of exploitation. And, hell, it leaves us with a couple of bad-ass one-liners. Enjoy if you dare. This one is for the boys with low expectations and an appetite for destruction.
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