'Hell Ride': Guaranteed to Make You Sore

The bikersploitation epic "Hell Ride" could be amusing, but only if viewers imagine that all the be-whiskered, be-leathered, two-wheeled gangsters arrived on set having just stripped off their organic honey-fruit facial masks, buffed their nails and prepared for their sweaty desert day with a generous spritzing of Boucheron Pour Homme. Which isn't all that hard. Director and star Larry Bishop seems to have Grecian Formula-ed his carefully manicured goatee. Michael Madsen is wearing a tux shirt blousey enough that monkeys could be wrestling under it. And Dennis Hopper, with his natty white mustache, looks like the little man on the Monopoly box. Frightening? We should say not.

But there's a lot of posing and snarling, and more siliconed breasts than you can shake a Wonderbra at, in this . . . what in the bloody world is it? Apparently, a homage to, or parody of, the late-'60s biker flicks of Roger Corman ("The Wild Angels") or Richard Rush ("Hells Angels on Wheels"), or perhaps the B-movies Bishop appeared in himself, way back when ("The Savage Seven," "Wild in the Streets"). But there's not the least bit of slyness about it, and an embarrassing amount of engine-gunning is expended, though not to make any point. The question -- a fatal one for audiences to be asking themselves in the middle of a movie -- is why this thing was made at all.

Bishop (son of Rat Packer Joey), had a role in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol. 2." He is fortunate enough to have Tarantino's name attached as a "presenter" of "Hell Ride," which should give him considerable cred among lovers of all things Quentin -- a crowd Bishop has gone out of his way to cultivate. "Hell Ride," a la "KB2," begins in high-contrast black and white, features David Carradine in a particularly sinister role and is a tale of sordid revenge that includes three throat slittings in the first 10 minutes. This may entice you. Or not.

The crawling influence of "Grindhouse," Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's tribute to bad old drive-in movies, is another depressing element of "Hell Ride": As occasionally happens in fashion, music and even food, a prominent party takes an ironic/nostalgic interest in some cultural mishap, and the hipsters start genuflecting. Where "Grindhouse" made healthy fun of cheap '60s sensationalism, "Hell Ride" takes it seriously. It was a joke, guys. Get a clue.

If one has any doubts about the obesity epidemic in this country, he or she should check out the dialogue in "Hell Ride." The script -- again, by Bishop -- is so engorged with puns, pseudo-profundity and purposefully obscure inanity that its role model seems to be Joe Ezsterhas, or Lewis Carroll, rather than the pulp writers who inspired so much great noir cinema. Of course, if "Hell Ride" actually felt satirical, it would be one thing. But the players are all very grave and solemn. Which makes the movie less like "Kill Bill" (or its other touchstone, "Reservoir Dogs") than a Junior Women's Club interpretation of "Medea."

I suppose it's time to recap the story: After an opening that involves a bit of time-juggling, the movie comes to rest on July 4, 1976, when a very attractive woman (Julia Jones) is set on fire, her son watching from the door of their cheap motel. Thirty-two years later, a graying biker suffers a similar fate. The link? If the narrative weren't so purposely contorted, you'd know in half a heartbeat, but the lineup of suspects includes Pistolero (Bishop), the Gent (Madsen) and Commanche (Eric Balfour), all of whom are introduced via freeze-frame graphic IDs that bang onto the screen with the impact of some drunk biker running over one of Hopper's lawn ornaments. Hopper, who plays things refreshingly tongue-in-cheek, is Eddie Zero, a link to the crimes of the past. He's also a link to "Easy Rider," in case anyone missed it.

Pistolero is "pres" of the Victors, a collection of sociopaths under siege by the more ruthless and powerful 666 gang, led by the Deuce (Carradine) and Billy Wings (the always menacing ex-U.K. footballer Vinnie Jones). After all the bloated lines are delivered, and dozens of women debased, and Bishop has attitudinalized the story line into incomprehensibility, you're hoping the 666ers will be allowed to commit unspeakable acts on our ostensible heroes, but such isn't entirely the case. The awfulness is perpetrated mostly upon the audience, who will be asking themselves how they ended up on this "Hell Ride" and what they it did to deserve it.

Hell Ride (85 minutes at area theaters) is rated R for violence, rampant vulgarity, rampant nudity, drug content and gore.