Stealth Entertainment

By Scott Lumley

June 16, 2008

If I ever have a threesome, I'd like it to be with a man *and* a woman. No offense, Jamie.

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Hollywood is a machine. Every week, every month and every year, countless films are released into theaters and not every one is as successful as the studio heads would hope. Sometimes the publicity machine was askew, sometimes the movie targeted an odd demographic, sometimes the release was steamrolled by a much larger movie and occasionally the movie is flat out bad.

But Hollywood's loss is our gain. There is a veritable treasure trove of film out there that you may not have seen. I will be your guide to this veritable wilderness of unwatched film. It will be my job to steer you towards the action, adventure, drama and comedy that may have eluded you, and at the same time, steer you away from some truly unwatchable dreck.

Hopefully we'll stumble across some entertainment that may have slid under your radar. Wish us luck.

TORQUE (2004)

Everyone remembers The Fast and the Furious. It was a movie for gearheads that tried to act dramatic and kind of failed miserably. Torque is the same movie, except the producers decided to focus on motorcycles and went for funny as opposed to dramatic.




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It works, too. I actually prefer this movie to The Fast and the Furious as it doesn't really take itself seriously. It's pretty important that it took this tone given the plot and the actors they had to work with. Also, they did not use Paul Walker, always a plus in our book.

Cary Ford (Martin Henderson, also seen in the Ring and Smoking Aces) is a crotch rocket racer who has returned from a tour of the orient to settle some unfinished business. Six months ago, he rapidly left town without warning and moments after he left, his girlfriend's motorcycle repair shop is raided by the FBI looking for a huge quantity of crystal meth. The drugs are never found; neither is Cary, and his girlfriend Shane is left holding the bag so to speak. Her phone is tapped, her boyfriend is gone and her life is upside down. Shane has no idea that Cary was set up and has essentially written him off.

Cary stays away as long as he can, then returns to try and patch things up with Shane as not being with her is driving him crazy. This is the only completely believable part of the movie as Shane is played by Monet Mazur, a supermodel looking actress who works as a motorcycle mechanic with perfect hair and nails. Monet has a fairly long if undistinguished film pedigree but it really doesn't matter here as her primary role is to look really, REALLY hot and she does it well. She's kind of a female version of Paul Walker but with actual acting skills.

Shane is also being sought by a large biker named Henry, played by Martin Schulze from The Fast and the Furious, his Girl China, played by Jaime Pressly of My name is Earl and the rest of their evil biker gang, played by actors who get cast as bikers a lot. Martin has their drugs and they want them back, although Henry is perfectly willing to settle for killing Cary extra dead for reasons that are not really made clear. Who are we to quibble with the rationale of a 6'8" homicidal biker, though?


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