Joe Lara stars as a harmonica-playing cowboy who rides across the post-apocalyptic wasteland getting into adventures. Brion James is the evil leader of “The Death Riders”. Along with his motorcycle-riding cronies, he goes around the wasteland, toppling small town governments and executing anyone who doesn’t join his ranks. Lara doesn’t take kindly to that, and he infiltrates James’ ranks in order to free the town of his iron fist.
Steel Frontier is an agreeable mix of post-apocalypse action and Spaghetti Western. It gets off to a good start with Lara finding a guy with his legs cut off on the side of the road begging to be put out of his misery. From there, it just sort of hops from one post-apocalyptic cliché to the other. It’s not great or anything, but it’s a decent enough flick if you like these kinds of genre mash-ups. The action is a bit better than you’d expect too as Lara’s motorcycle has more gadgets and weapons than James Bond’s car. Since it’s a PM movie, lots of stuff blows up, so there’s that.
There was no reason this had to be one-hundred-and-one minutes though. It definitely could’ve used some tightening up in the second act, that’s for sure. Still, there are little bits of amusement to be had. I liked the way Lara awkwardly secured his hat to his motorcycle just before a big chase scene so it would match the second unit footage of his hatless stunt double. I also thought it was funny that after about twenty minutes, James ups and decides that he doesn’t like the name Death Riders anymore, so he changes his faction’s name to “The United Regime”. I guess he tested the name with focus groups who decided The United Regime sounded a little less threatening.
The cast is fairly decent. Lara is an OK hero and James is an ideal villain (although he basically disappears for the entire second act). Bo Svenson has some good moments as his right-hand man who has had enough of all the killing and wants to settle down. Kane Hodder and Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quiones have small roles too, but they aren’t given a whole lot to do.
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