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Review by: Jack Foley | Rating:
One
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES: Behind the scenes (20 mins); Deleted
scenes (17 mins); Photo gallery.
WITH success, comes repetition, particularly when dealing with
Hollywood. Having been exposed to the illegal street car racing
scene with The
Fast and The Furious, we now have a window on the world of
the motorcyclists in Biker Boyz.
Less flashy and more character-based than its four-wheel counterpart,
Biker Boyz is also less exciting, suffering somewhat from an uneven
tone and some equally uneven acting. The fact that it arrives
in the slipstream of the tyre smoke left by 2
Fast 2 Furious also compounds the problem.
Derek Luke stars as Kid, an aspiring young racer, struggling
to earn the respect of his peers, while also attempting to come
to terms with the death of his mechanic father during a freak
mid-race accident.
He believes that by taking the crown of race legend, Smoke (Laurence
Fishburne), he can derive the recognition he deserves, while also
getting one over the man he blames for his father’s demise.
Yet the situation is complicated by the fact that Smoke is struggling
to become the father Kid lost, while also making good on his promise
to the youngster’s mother, that he will keep the boy away
from the street racing scene.
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With so much at stake, it seems amazing that Biker Boyz should
take such a pedestrian route to its make-or-break finale; yet
it pales in comparison to the adenaline-charged 2 Fast 2 Furious.
Director, Reggie Rock Bythewood, sets things in motion by delivering
a set piece that feels virtually lifted from the Furious movies
(at a race meeting, populated by skimpily-clad beauties and flashy
vehicles), before quickly becoming bogged down in the emotional
tussle which builds between Kid and Smoke.
And he never really strikes the right balance between the eye
candy and the character-building, leaving his talented cast with
too much to do.
They, in hand, are ill-served by a hopelessly-cliched script,
that fails to generate the necessary emotion needed to make the
ending powerful enough, which is a shame, given the quality on
show.
Luke, so good in Denzel Washington’s Antwone
Fisher, is made to look pretty average here (and fails to
be likeable), while Fishburne exudes his usual charisma, but isn’t
really given enough to do. The same can be said for Orlando Jones,
Eriq La Salle, Djimon Hounsou and Lisa Bonet - all of whom are
largely wasted.
Had Biker Boyz gone about its business with a little more verve,
its shortcomings may not have been as glaring, yet the lack of
va-va-voom makes it a less appealing ride-along than it really
ought to have been.
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