Hell Ride

Anyone got some chapstick?

I honestly believe that this movie is responsible for the deaths of two of Hollywood’s most terrible actors. Yes, I know Dennis Hopper died from cancer of the dick, and that David Carradine hung himself in fishnets for kicks in a Thai hotel, but really, it was because they were in this movie. Hopper probably ate plutonium and fucked a nuclear reactor for a month after seeing this movie at its premier, and we all know that Carradine was actually just trying to kill himself and was so embarrassed about starring in ‘Hell Ride’ that he masked his suicide as accidental suffocation “as a result of autoerotic asphyxiation”.

OK, that might be a bit harsh and ruthless, but really, this movie eats crayons and drools on itself. If it were a person it would eat dirt and boogers, and have knitted mittens pinned to it's jacket in Winter. The funny thing is it’s not actually all that bad a movie, from a narrative stand point. It’s just pulled off so poorly. It’s as if someone gave a Mexican a video camera and 700,000 pesos (about US$6.50) and asked him to recreate the history of his country, only with bikers and Americans instead of donkeys and illegal Americans. The acting is just so shitty. I can’t really stress that enough. It’s fucking terrible. Like they picked their cast from a special school for extra special people with poor acting abilities.

Larry Bishop (who actually wrote and directed this massive turd-stain) stars as Pistolero, el president of the Victors biker gang. He talks like he has a terrible head cold while trying to talk about three billion octaves lower than normal. It sounds like Martin Short trying to impersonate Vin Diesel. Anyway, his gang is in a bit of a kerfuffle with another bikey gang called the Six Six Sixers, which sounds about as dangerous as an eight year old girl on a tricycle. They are led by, and I’m not making this up, Vinnie Jones – who pulls off THE SINGLE WORST AMERICAN ACCENT EVER. Worse, it’s a southern accent. Seriously, I can’t watch the scenes with ‘Billy Wings’ in them because it sounds as if they found a deaf Pakistani man who didn’t know any English and asked him to read from the script. My ears bleed just thinking about this. If you thought that Serbia’s ethnic cleansing of Kosovo was an atrocity against man, then you’ve never heard Vinnie Jones try (and I stress try) to pull of being an American. In all honesty, give me Kosovo any day. The Albanians are just lucky this movie hadn’t been made yet.

As I mentioned earlier this sloppy grogan of a film also stars the late and not that great Dennis Hopper as ‘Eddie Zero’, the man with a stupid name and a more stupid jacket. He is a former Victor and old enemy of the corpse formerly known as David Carradine, who plays some badass called ‘The Deuce’, even though he is clearly only one person. Another superstar in this almost blindingly star filled epic is Michael Madsen, who only seems to get work if there is ‘A Band Apart’ film being made. Michael Madsen is shit, and got lucky once in Reservoir Dogs as the lovingly insane Mr. White. In this film he plays ‘The Gent’, a handsome vagabond biker with a love of loose women and of shooting people. And of talking like Michael Madsen. Fuck, who keeps hiring this guy. Michael Madsen is the kind of actor that could have made it big in the 90’s, but didn’t, and we can see why.

The story revolves around a dead native American girl named Chipolata or Jeep Grand Wrangler or - wait... it’s Cherokee – who is killed in 1976 and had a kid or a ‘food stamp maker’ and, well, it gets kind of muddy at this point. But that’s sort of necessary because the story isn’t overly complex. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good, and would have made a fantastic movie if it had been done well. But it wasn’t, so it isn’t.

My manliest man-crush – Tarantino – actually produced this film as, what I can only assume was, a favour owed. There wasn’t enough rape and/or head explosions to really give it that Quentin taste, but it certainly reflects a mix of Kill Bill, From Dusk Till Dawn and Desperado.

Alright, I admit that I may have been unnecessarily harsh on this movie, but it’s just that I see a lot of good and potential overshadowed by a cast of Hollywood’s C grade actors. Really, Vinnie Jones, in the unlikely event that you are reading this I would strongly recommend going to your kitchen, locate the cupboard under the sink, find a bottle with a warning label on it and drink that fucking thing. You disgust me. If you aren’t doing Guy Ritchie films I don’t want to see your Frankenstein-like arse anywhere near my TV. You were my main gripe with this film. Your acting was crap, your accent worse, and everything you did was way over the top. Go back to licking dead cunt, you tinsel faggot.

Dennis Hopper wasn’t actually that bad. Much like in True Romance his character – who gives the best speech about Sicily – Eddie Zero is annoying but likeable. David Carradine does pretty much what he does in Kill Bill, play the cool bad guy in a Texan suit. Both good portrayals on their part, but the characters aren’t going to win awards for originality. I’m sure they just ask Carradine to play himself – a cool bad guy who dies. Maybe it’s from getting shot by Uma Thurman, or maybe it’s dangling from a rope in a hotel wardrobe. In ladies underwear. With an erection. In the world.

Sorry, I was channelling Jeremy Clarkson there. It happens from time to time.

Rounding up, this is a movie you’ll only ever want to watch once. If you can get through once, that is. It’s got action, comedy, manly grit, bikes, tits, guns and David Carradine. Everything you want in a movie. If it had cars it would be Deathrace 2000 all over again. But it’s not.

But it is similarly equal parts awesome and terrible. I’d recommend buying this movie if you see it for under $8 in a discount bin at Go-Lo.

Or steal it. Whichever floats your boat.