FORMAT: DVD
Torque is obviously trying to cash in on the Fast and the Furious movies, but… you know… with motorcycles. It wants the audience to know right off the bat that these bikes are much faster and furiouser than anything in a Vin Diesel movie. Torque hilariously makes its mission statement known right in the opening scene where Martin Henderson races his crotch rocket past two drag racing muscle cars. He goes so fast (and furious) that his bike causes a street sign to spin around Looney Tunes-style. So fast does it spin, that it not-so subliminally causes the sign to read, “CARS SUCK”! [Insert Crying While Laughing Emoji here]
Later, when someone quotes the Fast and the Furious by saying, “I live my life a quarter mile at a time”, another character wrinkles their forehead and quips, “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!”
I guess I was already genetically predisposed to like this movie.
There are very few traditional camera set-ups in Torque. Everything is amped up to 11 (or maybe 12). It’s full of wild and weird camera shots that give the admittedly silly story an almost mythical feel. Imagine if Sergio Leone slammed a case of Monster energy drink before making a biker flick and that might give you an idea of what to expect. Even then, that really doesn’t come close to accurately describing it.
You could say it’s brain dead, but I disagree. It has a brain. Of a four-year old. Who is maniacally obsessed with motorcycles. Who also happens to be hopped up on Mountain Dew and Coco Puffs.
The plot, such as it is, has Martin Henderson riding back into town to make amends with his estranged girlfriend. A bad biker has a beef with him, and he frames him for the murder of ice Cube’s brother in hopes Cube will do his dirty work for him.
The action scenes are ludicrous, which is another way of saying I dug them. There’s a chase through a forest that plays like a motorcycle version of the speeder bike chase in Return of the Jedi. The motorcycle chase that takes place on top of and inside of a moving train is a doozy too. The highlight is when two biker babes fight each other not only on speeding motorcycles, but WITH speeding motorcycles. It’s almost enough to make the motorcycle scenes in Mission: Impossible 2 seem quaint and restrained.
In fact, I have to wonder if producer Neal H. Moritz (who also produced the Fast and Furious movies) saw the dailies for Torque and was like, “Shit man we gotta up our game!” as the later Fast films seemingly take inspiration from the sheer lunacy found here. (I will say the overly CGI-ed finale is kind of lame, but it does have a funny punchline.)
Surprisingly enough, when the movie succumbs to the temptation to have an actual car chase with actual cars, it’s just as silly and includes a great bit when a Humvee does a roll midair and lands on a Porsche. You don’t see that every day.
The performances are kind of mellow compared to the cinematic gymnastics of director Joseph Kahn. Only Jaime Pressly as the sexy bad biker babe China really seems to know what kind of foolishness she signed up for. This is probably her best performance since Poison Ivy 3, and that is indeed, about the highest praise I can bestow upon an actress.
Oh, and in the Torque universe, there’s only one beer: Budweiser.
According to IMDb trivia, Kahn said he set out to make “A dumb movie for smart people”. All I can say is… Mission accomplished!
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