"Riders" is that rare thing - a bad movie that has nothing at all to recommend it. Oh sure, there are some neat (but unoriginal) stunts, and the people are cute to look at. But that's all. Really.
The film's French tagline - "Bank robbery is an extreme sport" - says where the film is coming from: it's the equivalent of that endless sports channel footage of skaters and snowboarders, but done as a heist movie. Unfortunately, it has about the same attention to character and scenario development as the sports channel footage.
The attraction of heist movies is watching the clever plot unfold, unravel, and then either work or fall apart. "Riders" doesn't offer any of that. No tension, no development, nada. Just another implausible heist, another burst of extreme sports footage, then back to the clubhouse for the cool young dudes to plan their next coup.
Except that they don't plan. Or rehearse much. Everything seems to 'just happen'. "Oh look, we just pulled off another perfectly- executed heist. How about that?"
This goes for the inevitable entanglements as well - the bad guys who want their share of the loot just seem to surge out of the woodwork on cue. Despite all the masks and disguises and extreme sports getaways, no one - police or thieves - actually seems to have any difficulty working out who these people are and where to find them. Did they leave flyers at the scene of the crime? Put up a website or something? The director doesn't tell, but telling a coherent story is apparently not one of his priorities.
There's lots more not to like. The dialogue is clunky, the performances are mediocre at best. The four hip young things and Natasha Henstridge are merely lacklustre; it's left to the veteran actors to really drag the movie down to the depths where it belongs. Bruce Payne is bad by any standard, but the prize has to go to Steven Berkoff, whose unwatchable scenery-chewing (complete with gratingly-false Southern accent) breaks new ground in the history of bad acting. If they'd digitally replaced him with Jar-Jar Binks it would have been more convincing and less painful to watch.
To describe this as "Straight to video" material would be too kind. It's not even that good.
The film's French tagline - "Bank robbery is an extreme sport" - says where the film is coming from: it's the equivalent of that endless sports channel footage of skaters and snowboarders, but done as a heist movie. Unfortunately, it has about the same attention to character and scenario development as the sports channel footage.
The attraction of heist movies is watching the clever plot unfold, unravel, and then either work or fall apart. "Riders" doesn't offer any of that. No tension, no development, nada. Just another implausible heist, another burst of extreme sports footage, then back to the clubhouse for the cool young dudes to plan their next coup.
Except that they don't plan. Or rehearse much. Everything seems to 'just happen'. "Oh look, we just pulled off another perfectly- executed heist. How about that?"
This goes for the inevitable entanglements as well - the bad guys who want their share of the loot just seem to surge out of the woodwork on cue. Despite all the masks and disguises and extreme sports getaways, no one - police or thieves - actually seems to have any difficulty working out who these people are and where to find them. Did they leave flyers at the scene of the crime? Put up a website or something? The director doesn't tell, but telling a coherent story is apparently not one of his priorities.
There's lots more not to like. The dialogue is clunky, the performances are mediocre at best. The four hip young things and Natasha Henstridge are merely lacklustre; it's left to the veteran actors to really drag the movie down to the depths where it belongs. Bruce Payne is bad by any standard, but the prize has to go to Steven Berkoff, whose unwatchable scenery-chewing (complete with gratingly-false Southern accent) breaks new ground in the history of bad acting. If they'd digitally replaced him with Jar-Jar Binks it would have been more convincing and less painful to watch.
To describe this as "Straight to video" material would be too kind. It's not even that good.