July 09, 2007
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Your retarded kid brother's favorite movie.Do you know what I want to see? A glossy action-packed big-budget motion picture devoted to extreme redneck jet skiing. I even have a plot all hammered out and spit shined: A former New York City detective turned alcoholic private dick is hired to investigate the disappearance of a wealthy teenage girl linked to the kingpin of a sinister cabal of sleazy Kentucky moonshiners. As a series of baffling clues regarding this naive young lady's whereabouts are slowly uncovered, our tipsy hero must take to the waters of Cumberland Lake on a high-powered jet ski to annihilate this ruthless hillbilly mafia and rescue the girl before time runs out!
Say what you will about my silly paper-thin scenario, the end result couldn't be any worse than the cinematic nose loogie otherwise known as Torque . Directed by veteran music video director Jospeh Kahn, the film tries its very best to emulate every single extreme sports flick you've had the displeasure of experiencing over the past decade or so. However, instead of thrusting a group of pretty young things behind the wheel of a pimped-out automobile designed by a lanky teenage boy's sticky wet dream, Torque is content to strap its blemish-free cast to a set of self-described "crotch rockets" in what can only be described as an illogical high-contrast sci-fi future. Think Mad Max by way of American Rider magazine.
It's pretty, but it's not smart.
Here's the lowdown: Motorcycle enthusiast turned Thailand refugee Cary Ford (Martin Henderson) returns to these fantastic United States to smooth things over with his faux sexy ex-girlfriend Shane (Monet Mazur) after leaving her to deal with the aftermath of his shady criminal dealings. According to legend, Ford snagged a handful of shiny new bikes stuffed with crystal meth from some loser named Henry James and his gang of hairy white trash henchmen for no apparent reason, an event that is still a touchy subject amongst those who roll in these oh-so smelly circles. Because, you know, all bikers are drug dealing degenerates.
The heat is increased considerably when Ford is framed for the murder of Junior Wallace, brother of African-American biker Trey (Ice Cube). In addition to running, hiding, and performing spectacular stunts to elude his enemies, Ford must avoid a pair of wise-cracking FBI agents determined to toss our scruffy anti-hero behind the bars of a maximum security federal penitentiary. Aided by his old friends and his reluctant love interest, Ford must wheel and deal his way to freedom if he wants to ride his cherished motorcycle into the proverbial sunset.
Simply put, Torque is a cheap masturbatory fantasy for overweight auto mechanics who believe motor oil sludge to be the height of sexy, or, a flashy MTV fairy tale designed specifically for American males who spend too much time sticking their limp willies into filthy downtown glory holes. It also doubles as a fine example of brainless action filmmaking suitable for mass consumption by moronic online movie critics like myself who revel in this sort of impossibly stupid fare. Unless you just enjoy injecting rancid fecal matter directly into your retinas with a crack-addicted whore's dirty needle, there's no earthly reason to spend an evening with this impossibly goofy flick.
To be fair, director Josephn Kahn tries his best to pump up the volume by over-saturating his feature-length debut in over-the-top stunts and seventeen tons of odorous machismo, none of which is competently conceived or executed. So frantic and needlessly confusing is the final high-speed chase that I actually had to watch it no less than three times before I could craft all the broken pieces into one coherent sequence. What good is an explosive climax if you can't tell what the hell is going on? Memo to Kahn: Don't bother filming anything you can't competently piece together in the editing room. Seriously.
What more could I possibly say about Torque that hasn't already been covered by other unfortunate bloggers brave enough to give this monstrosity its day in court? There's honestly nothing here worth checking out, even if you believe motorcycles to be the coolest mechanized gadgets on the entire planet. On top of a handful of lousy action sequences, you're also forced to contend with a constipated Ice Cube, a clueless Martin Henderson, and some cheap blonde airhead who appears to have been conceived in a high-tech laboratory using DNA from both Darryl Hannah and Sarah Michelle Gellar. If you really need to see a movie about morons on bikes, film a friend driving your kid sister's tricycle into oncoming traffic.
Just be sure to send me a copy of the carnage, okay?
1 Spasms:
A friend of mine saw this when it was in theaters. If you can believe it, and I'm sure you can, he paid out the nose at the local stadium-theater to watch this movie. He loves this kind of shit, too. If they made a movie about drug dealing base/bungie jumpers with an elaborate ten minute kung fu fight scene in the middle of a bungie jump, he would pay for it and love it.
Even he said this one looked like a long mountain dew commercial.
That speaks volumes to me.
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