Why would an obscure biker film like "Five the Hard Way" (also known as "The Side Hackers") make it to the old Bottom 100 list* on IMDB? Well, a ton of movies made it there mostly because they were featured on "MSTK3000"....and truly deserving films like "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and "The Room" never made the list. Now I am not saying these are good films, but the show often took poor films and made you think they were terrible films...and I assume that's the case with this film. Who knows? Perhaps it is Bottom 100 worthy....and I had to find out for myself if it was really that incompetent.
The film is like two films put together. One is pretty neat....and that is the racing they do with a 'hack'...a sidecar like rig on a motorcycle. Watching these races was actually pretty exciting and I enjoyed this. The other is not so neat...in fact, it's boring. And this would be every time there is plot. The dialog and acting are very poor and the film is big on showing women being slapped around and molested...a big reason NOT to watch. But NONE of it is bad enough to make it even approach a Bottom 100 or possibly even Bottom 1000 list. No, this is ONLY due to its being featured on "MSTK3000"...which gives many the mistaken idea that just because a film made fun of means it's one of the worst films made. No...it means that it was a film they could get rights to show...and thousands of godawful films never got the "MSTK3000" treatment due to rights issues. I'd give this film a 3...which is bad but certainly NOT horrible. It isn't so much bad as very boring and limp. Plus, considering how cheaply it was made, it's actually still better than you'd expect.
*Some time ago, IMDB revamped the criteria for the list. Instead of just a few hundred votes, now a film needs a minimum of 10,000 votes...meaning obscure films were no longer on the list. As a result, most, if not all, of the "MSTK3000" entries were no longer eligible.
The film is like two films put together. One is pretty neat....and that is the racing they do with a 'hack'...a sidecar like rig on a motorcycle. Watching these races was actually pretty exciting and I enjoyed this. The other is not so neat...in fact, it's boring. And this would be every time there is plot. The dialog and acting are very poor and the film is big on showing women being slapped around and molested...a big reason NOT to watch. But NONE of it is bad enough to make it even approach a Bottom 100 or possibly even Bottom 1000 list. No, this is ONLY due to its being featured on "MSTK3000"...which gives many the mistaken idea that just because a film made fun of means it's one of the worst films made. No...it means that it was a film they could get rights to show...and thousands of godawful films never got the "MSTK3000" treatment due to rights issues. I'd give this film a 3...which is bad but certainly NOT horrible. It isn't so much bad as very boring and limp. Plus, considering how cheaply it was made, it's actually still better than you'd expect.
*Some time ago, IMDB revamped the criteria for the list. Instead of just a few hundred votes, now a film needs a minimum of 10,000 votes...meaning obscure films were no longer on the list. As a result, most, if not all, of the "MSTK3000" entries were no longer eligible.