SYNOPSIS: Bad-ass biker Pistolero (Larry Bishop) hits the road to avenge the killing of his lover Cherokee Kisum (Julia Jones) by a rival motorcycle gang the 666ers, along with his brother The Gent (Michael Madsen) and the mysterious Comanche (Eric Balfour).
REVIEW: In order to enjoy this movie you must satisfy one of the following prerequisites: you must be a Quentin Tarantino fan, or a Robert Rodriguez fan, or a fan of 70s style biker movies, or at least a fan of the three B’s . . . beer, bikes, and booty. Remember the Man Show on cable TV? For some reason I kept thinking about it during the movie. I guess this movie is like the Man Movie. It really is all about the beer, bikes, and booty. Throw on top of that a hefty cast, cool characters with cool outfits, a retro look and filming style, in your face action, and a palpable revenge story and you’ve got a Hell Ride. Larry Bishop obviously went to the Tarantino School of Filmmaking and although this project does not quite reach Tarantino caliber, it is a good second run as Director for Larry. He is also the writer and star of this film giving him triple threat status. Even though most would say that Tarantino was, as he usually is, very involved with the making of this picture, we can still see Larry’s potential. His direction was good and he played his role well considering he is not a big name on the big screen, but the writing was marginal at best. The script did fit the movie and the movie fit the script but at moments it was a little adolescent. It was more interesting to see how the performers were delivering their lines than what they were actually saying. The fact that the movie was choppy too doesn’t help.
The big names like Dennis Hopper, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, and Vinnie Jones all delivered. Just seeing them in action really helps make the movie worth while. Both Larry Bishop and Eric Balfour kept up nicely with these big guns. All these guys’ characters were larger than life, as bikers tend to be. So were the babes, oops, sorry, the women. Va va voom! I was especially impressed by Leonor Varela. I last saw her in Blade II. Remember the vampire princess that got to Blade’s soft spot, well talk about a different role for her. In the words of the best College Football announcer ever, Keith Jackson, “Whoa Nelly!” Unfortunately, however, the movie starts out slow and never really picks up much speed. You can see how it establishes the importance of biker honor and loyalty, and how the plot for revenge begins to develop but I caught myself thinking a couple of times, what’s the point? Even the climax was a bit uneventful but at least the story has some twists and is wrapped up nicely in the end. This random movie could easily fit in the Grindhouse series, although not as good as the first two. Be warned, it is not a movie for everybody.
Movie Review By Cine Marcos
DVD: The DVD includes around 40 minutes of special features. The special features really dont add to much to the value of the DVD. It includes a feature commentary, “The Making of Hell Ride”, “The Babes of Hell Ride”, “The Guys of Hell Ride” and “The Choopers of Hell Ride”. The only feature that I found worth watching was “The Choopers of Hell Ride” in which the producers talk about how they match a motorcycle to a character.
Release Date: October 28, 2008
