Torque (2004)
Copyright by the Doomster 2005
Rating (1 to 10) : 4
Summary: Ford is a motorbiker with some trouble. He is hiding drugs that belong to a biker gang leader. He is being pursued by Federal law agents who think he’s a drug dealer. And he was framed to appear as if he killed the brother of the leader of a gang of black bikers. And he wants to restart a relationship with his ex-girlfriend.
You can’t just make a good action movie with mostly visual action scenes and a wafer-thin story and “Torque” is proof of that. The plot isn’t too complicated and I think this was done intentionally so that the viewer wouldn’t have to think too much. This movie just wants you to watch it and suppress any skepticsm about the plausibility of some of the action scenes.
Cary Ford (Martin Henderson, Noah in “The Ring”) is a motorcyclist who split LA and spent six months in Thailand because he was being pursued by a Federal law enforcement agent named Agent McPherson. McPherson thinks Ford is hiding a large amount of crystal meth. But the drug actually belongs to Henry James (no, not the author), played by Matt Schulze (who also played the villain in “The Transporter”). Henry is the leader of a white “Hell’s Angel”-like motorcycle gang and he hid the drugs in two of his motorcycles that he stored with Cary. He now wants them back. To make things complicated, Henry kills the brother of Trey (Ice Cube, Doughboy in “Boyz in the Hood”) to further his drug-dealing plans and pins the blame on Ford. Ford now has three interested parties looking for him.
The plot might be a bit of a stretch but it’s plausible. The same can’t be said of the action scenes. Instead of getting a good storyline or drama to untangle Ford’s predicament, you get action shots of Ford and the other actors on bikes doing impossible stunts. Some of these stunts are unbelievable; some of just physically impossible. And because the impossible ones could not be simulated using stuntmen and props, they were done by using computer-generated graphics. Unfortunately, as the movie switches to the CGI-graphics, it comes off looking like a hoax; you expect it from a movie like “The Matrix” but not an action movie like this.
Why you should or should not see this movie:
You don’t need to see this movie. You’re not missing much.
Memorable quotes
Copyright by the Doomster 2005