Wednesday 7 November 2012

BIKER BOYZ

CONTAINZ ZOME ZPOILERZ

Tolerable bike-based idiocy from 2003 with as much testosterone as unleaded petrol, in which the male characters all strut around like angry dicks and the female characters are reduced to eye candy or concerned mothers. That's not to say it isn't any fun, but essentially it's a thoroughly preposterous two-wheeled version of The Fast And The Furious crossed with daytime soap opera slop which is made bearable by the mighty Laurence Fishburne slumming it in what is basically shiny whizzy tosh for no good reason.

Biker Boyz centres on Jaleel, known as Kid (Derek Luke), a wannabe motorbike champion of California in the nocturnal street-racing community. The reigning champion is veteran Smoke (Fishburne), but he's been easing off recently after his mechanic, Kid's father was accidentally killed. Strictly speaking, Kid should have to work his way up the racing ranks within an established club: he elects instead to form his own club with fellow rider Primo and hustler Stuntman (everyone has silly names in this movie: other characters include Soul Train, Motherland, Queenie and Chu Chu), but first he has to take on the arrogant and dangerous Dogg. However, Kid's mother has a bombshell of a family secret....

It's rubbish, and the dramatic scenes are awful, but Fishburne is always worth watching, there's some fair-to-decent bike footage and the support cast is pretty impressive (Orlando Jones, Djimon Hounsou, Lisa Bonet, Terrence Howard). But it's silly and implausible and shallow and about 20 minutes too long; Joseph Kahn's Torque is shorter and more fun (although just as silly and empty). On balance, it's hardly worth the effort.

**

Brrm brrm:

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