Torque (Full Screen Edition)

This movie is about 90 minutes long. Probably for about the first 70 minutes, it’s just a normal bad movie. However, in the last 20 minutes or so it goes off the rails so fast and horribly that your head will spin. You must watch the movie from start to finish though. If you don’t suffer through those first 70 minutes, you don’t get the total effect of how great it is when the movie suddenly veers into total nonsense.

I saw this when it first came out, as a rider its utter rubbish, as a way to kill 90 mins its a laugh

This 2004 movie opens to a high speed car race that ends in a fight with biker Cary Ford [Martin Henderson]. Cary soon falls foul of two biker gangs, the hellions from whom he stole some bikes that contained drugs and the reapers, having been accused of killing their leaders brother.
This is typical ‘B Movie’ fun which gives up it’s story for over the top bike stunts and doesn’t take itself too seriously, introducing plenty of comic book moments. If you like high octane films such as the ‘XxX’ or ‘Fast and furious’ franchises but with bikes, this may well appeal, especially with the obligatory wet T shirt and car washing cameos.
The single disc opens to main menu featuring play, scene selection, special features [2 commentaries, two storyboards, music video and trailer] and languages [English/German, subtitles English/german/netherlands and English hard of hearing]. If you want action, beautiful girls and great bike stunts, but don’t want to think too much, then this if for you, but just falls short of a *****.

I host a regular bad movie night. This movie was more successful than anything else we’ve watched. It was such delightful schlock. Can’t recommend enough for how bad it is.

There is a dialog exchange about halfway through TORQUE in which the main character, Ford, quoting THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, says “I live my life a quarter mile at a time.” His love interest, Shane, responds back with, “That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.”

TORQUE is not a knock-off of FAST/FURIOUS. It is a self aware, tongue-in-cheek commentary on those movies, and for me it’s much more enjoyable than they are. TORQUE is delightfully over the top. It has bike-fu. It has a climactic set piece that is quite literally a video game. It has Jamie Pressly who barely says a word of dialog and spends the entire movie wearing revealing leather outfits, licking her lips in a seductive manner, and smacking other characters on the ass. It has Adam Scott’s hair, and Adam Scott in general. It has obvious and obnoxious product placement. It has thoroughly cheesy dialog. It is shot in a way that makes Edgar Wright look downright calm. And at 81 minutes, it’s briskly paced and doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.

I will say this isn’t as good as SHAUN OF THE DEAD or HOT FUZZ or the Holy Grail EVIL DEAD II as those come from places of love and are legit zombie/action/horror films while at the same time commenting on those genres. I mean, if you like those movies, you should definitely check out TORQUE, but TORQUE comes from a cynical place and is only trying to troll. In that end, it is a success.

If you’re not in on the joke of TORQUE, yeah, you’re gonna hate it. Maybe you’ll hate it either way. All I can tell you is that I had a stupid grin on my face for most of the run time.

Hubby loves this film