The Scene
"There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit,
and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary
freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink
that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I
would come out of the park near the soccer field and
pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I
knew anyone parked out there on the midnight hump-
ing strip.
Not many
of these--and with three lanes on a wide curve, a bike
coming hard has plenty of room to get around almost
anything--then into third, the boomer gear, pushing
seventy-five and the beginning of a windscream in
the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into
water off a high board.
Bent forward, far back on the seat, and a rigid
grip on the handlebars as the bike starts jumping
and wavering in the wind. Taillights far up ahead
coming closer, faster, and suddenly--zaapppp--going
past and leaning down for a curve near the zoo, where
the road swings out to sea.
The dunes are flatter here, and on windy days sand
blows across the highway, piling up in thick drifts
as deadly as any oil slick ... instant loss of control, a crashing, cartwheeling slide and maybe one
of those two-inch notices in the paper the next day:
"An unidentified motorcyclist was killed last night
when he failed to negotiate a turn on Highway 1."
Indeed . . . but no sand this time, the lever goes
up into fourth, and now there s no sound except wind.
Screw it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans
down on a hundred, and wind-burned eyeballs strain
to see down the centerline, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes.
But with the throttle screwed on there is only the
barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It
has to be done right.. and that's when the strange music starts, when your fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms.
The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers.. The Edge.. There is no honest way to explain it.
- Hunter Thompson "Midnight on the Coast Highway"
Just thought I'd throw in a piece from one of my favorite writers; the movie activated the recall switch.
What they say
"Biker Boyz bored me nearly to tears. It is the kind of vacuous, brain-dead movie that moves at an interminable pace. I felt every single minute of its too-long running time."
- Mike Granaghan, The Aisle Seat.. 1 star
"..the movie takes itself too seriously, too often and is ultimately unsure if it wants to be a bike flick, a hackneyed father-son drama or an expose on Black biker culture. In the end it doesn't achieve any of the goals successfully.
- James Hill, BET.com.. 2 stars
"This frenzied concoction of Yo! MTV Raps meets The Fast and the Furious in the mean streets of discontentment plays like a misguided melodrama running on an empty gas tank of worthy ideas."
- Frank Ochieng, TheWorldJournal.com.. 2 stars
"The film boringly unravels like Antwone Fisher On Wheels (or Rollerball sans skank factor) and is ultimately best savored as a reunion special between the cast of “The Cosby Show” and “A Different World.” DreamWorks is touting the film as a “contemporary Western” but a “two-hour hip-hop video with stank soap opera plot” is more like it."
- Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine.. 1 star
"Biker Boyz often has a decidedly low-rent look, and its motorcycle footage can't totally obscure troubles with a story that tries to play like a Western set in present-day Los Angeles."
- Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News.. 2 stars (C-)
My Opinion
I haven't seen this much hate directed towards a movie since Tom Green sucked on cow udders in Freddy Got Fingered.
Saw one bad review before the film (hate that) so I went in the theatre expecting the worst. The first twenty minutes lived up to the review and the one star they gave it. Once you get past the sappy tears that set up the film.. things get better.
Biker Boyz is based on an article of the same name by Michael Gougis, printed in the now defunct Los Angeles New Times. It told the story of real-life black motorcycle clubs in Los Angeles. I'm guessing the article is referenced because the question of Black Bikers would inevitably come up.
I knew nothing about black motorcyle culture going into the theatre and left just as clueless as I went in. That would have been disapointing if I had paid for a documentary or something.. what you ultimately want is a few hours of escape, a little entertainment. Derek Luke's performance was my entertainment for the night.
The Antowne Fisher kid proves once again that working at the candy shop was not to be his last stop in life.
Scratch him out of the script and you have one horrible film.
There are some plot troubles like, why was Kid (Derek Luke) so pissed at Smoke (Laurence Fishburne's character) after his father was accidently killed? It wasn't Smoke's fault or even his bike.
I understood it to be he felt that his father kissed Smoke's ass at the expense of showing him any attention. Once that's established you can kinda understand his anger..
Little did he know what his mama would reveal later.
Meagan Good [Tina] also got my attention, or should I say Meagan Very Good. It's more than that, she walks on screen and it's Meagan Dayummmmm. The pout in her lips, breasts on a platter.. yeah her character is that deep. But who cares. She's the chick that spots up on the back of the bike. She's supposed to look good. That's it.
It's crazy that so many actors were stuffed in this film. Larenz Tate is above the role he played. Lisa Bonet.. umm , did she have more than one line? Yeah, one more than Salli Richardson. Djimon Hounsou who starred in Amistad and Gladiator, he seemed out of place.
Orlando Jones was cool, but Kadeem Hardison as an OG? Yeah right. Things could have been worse.. it could have been filled with Raptors (rappers turned actors.)
As things turned out, only Kid Rock has an album out.
45 minutes into the movie, Lisa Bonet has been on screen for more than a few scenes and some girl sitting a few seats down the aisle says, "Hey, that's the girl from the Cosby Show." What the.. I looked down the aisle to see who could possibly be so gotdamn slow. Babygirl was like 9 years old.. Oh, that's understandable. Anyone else gets kernels tossed at them. pop! right in the head.
Laurence Fishburne taking a break from his Matrix work was cast correctly. What the film comes down to is the older generation being challenged by the new. Laurence Fishburne looked old school. I don't know if it was makeup or what; he's all puffy in the face, no energy like he needs a Nutrament or B-12 shot. You wonder how he ever got to be the King of Cali. He had the strength to wipe the bar with Derek Luke's body though.. Hah!
With all of those problems.. I still enjoyed the movie. Call it the Luke Factor. The references to it as a wanna-be Fast and the Furious give Fast too much credit. If you put them on a scale it comes out about equal. Fast wins for action sequences and Biker Boyz wins for acting. The acting in Fast and the Furious was bad, and that does not mean good.
Hopefully Wesley Snipes and the Ruff Ryders are taking notes.. their interpretation of the black biker culture, When the Ride Is Ruff is coming soon.
3 squirts from the butter meter
Your Opinion
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