JC Duhaylungsod

4 BAE

Well, if you are tired of scanning those magazines for top of the rank va-va-voom motorcycles, just get a copy of the movie entitled Toque. Like its sister/brother/mother/father/whatever movie, The Fast And The Furious, also produced by Neil Mortiz (the very fact that the movie was very proud of), big and sassy big bikes were decorating the movie screen . Pick whatever style you like ( 1992 TZ250, 1992 NSR250 SE, S4, 99 ST4), whatever color (plain of with different combinations), how fast or ¨furious¨ (ach!), no matter how big and bulky, the film had it.

Having the penchance for motorcycle, my mouth was open the whole time the movie was showing, while trying to figure out how those dudes and dudettes manage to do every single exhibition they did to a very common vehicle in this generation. While they were swerving and accelerating and jumping on and off a moving train, I was wondering if I would also be able to do all of those groin aching stints. Now, how the hell did they nurse their groins by the way?

Now, how the hell were the production came up with those bikes? Well, before shooting the movie, the people resposible for the casting posted invitations to all motorcycle groups in the US to attend the filming of the movie. Bikers from all over the country, riding different kinds of bike, answered the invitation. Not only did this solve the problem of the casting production, it was also able to gather mtorcycle enthusisiasts from all over US.

But heed these simple words of advice: Just focus on the motorcycles and the motorcycle stints in the movie. Do not attempt appreciating the story line and the quality of acting of the casts or you will end up cussing about your wasted money. Yes people, sad fact, the movie was a trash. If we take away all of the stins, it would just look like a sloppy romantic/action flick between hot chics in tight costumes, very obnoxious gang leaders and a very airy lead man.

The story was all about this Cary Ford who went away to Thailand, which was always mistaken by the other casts in the movie as China, and went back to Los Angeles after six months to finish an unfinished (of course!) business he had with his girlfirend, Shane (a motorcycling chick who owned a motorcycle shop). And not to mention his uncanny engagement with the lead antagonist, Henry, for stealing his precious bikes that had ¨high-grade drugs¨ in the tanks.,

The movie opened with two racing cars, obviously alluding to the sister/brother/mother/father/whatever movie The Fast and The Furious, racing on the deserted road going to the city of Los Angeles. Behind them was a motorcycle, driven by the main character, who was trying to pass between the two arrogant eggheads in the two cars. And since he was the protagonist of the film, he was able to outdo the two racing cars and left the two machines eating a billow of dust. This was followed after by a fight scene between the two drivers of the racing cars and Ford. And again, since he was the lead character, he won the fist fight which ended up bnefitting the young car washer who got ten dollars from the wallet of the two fallen enemies.

The movie was flooding with a lot of improbabilities and incoherence. For example: Why the hell did Ford, in the first place, steal all of Henryś mercahndise? What was his reason> Was he trying to be a benevolent motorcycling hunk? Or he just did it so he can have a movie entitled the Torque? Number Two: Who told his two buddies, Val and Dalton, that their good motorcycling buddy was back in town and was somehwere in a diner beating two car racers? And after all of the body cringing and balls popping fist fight, only then did the two showed up?

Another horrendous thing about the film was the dialogues. Not only were the characters seemed to have swallowed a rock (they remind me of someone I knew at school), they also seemed to have picked almost all of their qoutable lines somewhere in the archives of the ¨Famous Movie Cliches¨. Lines like:

Val: Every major road into L.A. is blocked. I know you said it wouldn't be fun if it was easy, but does it have to be THIS much fun?

And because of the shortnss of words of the writer of this movie, some seconds later, the same character muttered this line to the protagonist,

Val: You want this hour's bad news? Every major road in L.A. is blocked! I know you said it wouldn't be any fun if it was easy, but does it have to be THIS much fun?

hereś an exchange of words between the two hot chick in the movie before engaging into a cat fight while riding their precious motorcycles:

China : You messed with the wrong chick!

Shane : [Shane knocks China off her bike] Looks like you did, bitch!

and another....

China : [before the bike duel] You want some of this, bitch?

Shane : Oh, I thought you'd never ask!

and thereś a lot more. Now, imagine all of these lines uttered in a Iḿ-so-cool-I-talk-like-Iḿ-Stallone-in-a-gangsta-role tone. Try practicing it in your own, I tell, it is fun.

And to top it up, after all of the explosions, exaggerated motorcycle speed (car windows actually got broken when the Y2K motorcycle passed them), tongue exposures, ruined motorcycles, so cliched toughie-toughie-dialogues,a nd all of the you-are-seeing-the-insides-of-a-motorcycle-while-running side effcts, the movie was just all about a get together of Ford and his girlfriend. That the fim was just an action-coated romance lick. Hahahaha! The storyline of the Notebook was better, but it also had its flaws (of course!). But thatś another issue.

So in watching this film, if you still have the gusto to do so, always, always be reminded of the warning I gave earlier.

For this movie, I give five fingers for the motorcycle and one, the middle finger, for the film itself.

List of People to be Crucified:

Director:torque.movie.com Joseph Kahn (feature film debut) Former music video director for Aerosmith, Janet Jackson, U2, Destiny's Child, Moby and Ice Cube.

Screenwriter(s): Matt Johnson, J.P. Donahue, Kevin Polay

Producers: Neil Moritz

Cinematographer: Peter Levy (Broken Arrow, Cutthroat Island)

Composer: Trevor Rabin (Deep Blue Sea, Enemy of the State, Con Air)

Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures and NPV Entertainment.

Release Date: January 16, 2004 (wide)

Actors:

Martin Henderson (Cary Ford)

Ice Cube (Trey Wallace)

Monet Mazur (Shane)

Will Yun Lee (Val)

Jay Hernandez (Dalton)

Adam Scott

Faizon Love (Sonny)

Justina Machado (Henderson)

Christina Milian (Nina)

Jaime Pressly (China)

Nichole Robinson

Matt Schulze (Henry)

Dane Cook (Neil Luff)

Sources:

www2.warnerbros.com/torque/?frompage=sitemap

romanticmovies.about.com/od/torque/

www.themoviebox.net/movies/ 2004/STUVWXYZ/Torque/main-page.html

www.correspondences.org/archives/000534.htm

www.thezreview.co.uk/comingsoon/t/torque.shtm

www.ducatiridersclub.com/html/09-21-02.html