Writers: Walter Dallenbach, Thomas Pope
Composer: Don Hulette
Starring: Perry Lang, Michael MacRae, Michael Sullivan, Margo Ann Berdeshevsky, Hal Bokar, Jan Burrell, Bryan Englund, Ben Fuhrman, Ernie Garrett
More info: IMDb
Tagline: They road across the back country looking for a dream ... that became a nightmare!
Plot: Cocky, overconfident motocross champion Jim Dancer and his more mature and levelheaded bike racing buddy Steve Mitchell decide to trek from Mexico to Canada via an unmarked off-road route. During their eventful pilgrimage the carefree fun-loving (and seeking) protagonists encounter a mixed bag of folks who include a perky middle-aged lady who wrecks cars for a living, two sexy swinging babes, a friendly farmer, and a hotshot aspiring motocross rider teen who challenges Dancer to a race. It gets crazy from there.
My rating: 8/10
Will I watch it again? Absolutely!
This flick was outstanding! What a nice surprise! The two leads, Lang & Sullivan, have such a natural chemistry together. They're so likable. The movie starts with the pair's motocross bikes' tires up against the chain link fence on the US/Mexcio border...and they're off! They get into all kinds of little adventures, some fun, some kind of dangerous. There is some very good acting going on here, too. Hal Bokar plays a rancher the boys stumble upon. He knocks it out the park with a natural performance that you'd swear he was a seasoned character actor with hundreds of credits under his belt. Nope, he wasn't and doesn't. He showed the chops in the movie to make me think he could've been a solid B-list actor at the very least.
I don't want to spoil this movie because I watched it knowing absolutely nothing about it but early on, some teenager challenges Jim to a race and it doesn't end like wants it to. The kid's father is a stern asshole with an M-16 and a souped-up pickup truck and he's out for blood. The ONLY problem I have with the movie is that his truck is tricked out with a computer that not only tells him how much fuel he has with the miles left (which I'm down with) and things like oil pressure and the like, but it also tells him how far he is from the boys and dumb shit like that. How the hell could it or anything else know where they are to calculate that shit? It couldn't and it's dumb. Other than that, what happens to the father was shocking and very satisfying. I so much want to talk about it but I can't. It's this sub-plot the provides the film with tension that you don't expect and it oddly works nicely among the other little things that Steve & Jim get into and they don't even know who this guy is. This cat & mouse game adds a lot to their adventure.
I would say pictures like this don't generally have the luxury of quality acting because I've never seen a picture like this. It's a biker flick in the sense that the two leads ride bikes but it's not like any biker flick out there. It's more of a road film with Jim & Steven having a cross country adventure. It's more than that, though. Director Hulette strings all of these vignettes together in such a smooth way that it all feels so natural. I've seen so many low budget movies that struggle to keep your interest and to form a reasonable narrative and this one does it better than a lot of larger budget pictures with hardened professionals working on it. This isn't some hidden masterpiece that sits up there with the greats but it's a most enjoyable and satisfying picture. It's got racing, sex, scenery, bonding, death, humanity and revenge. They chose an appropriate title for sure. Oh, and there's nudity for those of you who like that sort of thing. Ick.
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