Review: Torque

Rated PG-13 | 81 mins

“Which way did ‘dey go?”

Masturbatory moviemaking has always been around, but each year, it becomes more and more prevalent in the medium of film. Recently, we’ve seen it done in a cool manner (Kill Bill) and we’ve seen it done in a not-so-cool manner (Something’s Gotta Give). The director of Torque, Joseph Kahn, is a first-timer. However, he clearly arouses himself like a professional. It’s too bad the audience couldn’t have some fun while watching him do it, as we can with Q.T.’s work. In this movie, bikers pee off cliffs, bikers lick themselves, and bikers fight in weird sorts of dementedly ironic ways. Despite this, the movie only carries a PG-13 rating, because as long as Kahn does it with himself, it’s perfectly okay by the MPAA. I’m not sure what Torque wants to be exactly, and I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be taken seriously or not, but it’s so over-the-top and laughably bad, I almost admired it.

Plot-wise, Torque is lacking substance, but I don’t think that many of its viewers will be expecting anything more than it provides in the department. There’s a biker gang who hates another biker gang who hates another biker gang. Or, at least, I think that’s how it goes. Then there are some drugs, bike parts, and rivalries involved in a cheesy mystery that Kahn would like to be able to call twisty, which is set up later in the film. In between all the gaps that this leaves, we get a few ruthless stunts, predictable chases, and funny expressions and one-liners. Oh, and then there’s the pierced biker chick, who, by the end of the movie, begins to really freak you out. Am I forgetting anything? Right, how could I forget that? There’s nothing to forget in the first place.

The buzz surrounding Torque is the honest-to-god truth. It’s stupid, poorly acted, and terribly written. Still, I’m not exactly sure that it doesn’t want to be bad. I wouldn’t go so far as to call Torque a parody of biker movies, but it clearly likes to kid with its audience.

Take, for example, supporting actor Ice Cube’s performance. Half of me loves his work, and takes it as a hysterically wondrous mocking of stupidly serious flicks with lame-brained motorcyclists. The other half thinks that it is a pitiful part of one of those stupidly serious flicks with lame-brained motorcyclists. This doesn’t much matter, though. We have a good time watching Torque, and an even better one making fun of it. Clocking in at just eighty-two minutes, it’s a completely tolerable and somewhat refreshing, dopey January release.