Torque (2004)

Directed by: Joseph Kahn | 84 minutes | action, crime, thriller | Actors: Martin Henderson, Ice Cube, Monet Mazur, Adam Scott, Matt Schulze, Jaime Pressly, Jay Hernandez, Max Beesley, Christina Milian, Dane Cook, John Doe, Gichi Gamba, Lance Gilbert, Will Yun Lee, Faizon Love, Justina Machado

Video clip directors making the switch to feature film, it’s more common. Sometimes it works out well, like for example with Spike Jonze or David Fincher, sometimes less so, think of Tarsem or McGee. Rarely, however, has a well-known clip director been so devastated with his feature film debut as Joseph Kahn with “Torque.” Kahn is probably the greatest clip director of recent years, having directed high-profile music videos for artists as diverse as U2, Eminem, Korn and Britney Spears.

His first feature film has become a motor racing film with a lot of action. The entire film is told in his busy, screaming video clip style. Producers Neil H. Moritz and Bad Luff wanted to follow the trend of successful racing films such as The Fast and the Furious (2001) and Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) and thought they had found the right man in the hip Kahn to direct this motorcycle spectacle. This was not entirely successful: ‘Torque’ was so poorly received in America that the target group, not the most critical cinemagoers after all, did not turn up as expected and the film has so far only grossed twenty million dollars. So even the production costs of forty million are far from being settled. ‘Torque’ even has the dubious honor of having reached the top of Imdb.com’s Bottom 100 of All time. According to this list, ‘Torque’ is one of the thirty worst movies ever.

In a way this makes us curious again: Is ‘Torque’ really that bad? That is actually not that bad, if you compare the film with its genre contemporaries. Like the aforementioned successful racing films like The Fast and the Furious’ (2001), ‘Torque’ is a series of action scenes, with a few attempts at story and dialogue in between that excel in silliness in an almost cute way. ‘Torque’ is actually little more or less than that.

Often there is still something nice to experience: many, many spectacular motorcycle scenes, camera angles from impossible angles (under train tracks for example), camera shots in traffic that go right through cars and sometimes even through people’s bodies, motorcycle chases that are filmed so hip. become more video game or animation than feature film. Yet all this cannot disguise the emptiness of the film.

Kahn can then direct spectacular action, a feature film usually also needs a story and a feature film director is also supposed to be able to direct the play of his cast. However, Kahn does not even attempt this. It really shouldn’t have been the cast: Handsome lead actor Martin Henderson has already shown in The Ring (2002) that he can act reasonably well, and rapper Ice Cube has also had significant roles in the past. In his role as biker gang leader Trey, however, Cube has his face in the same evil fold for the full length of the film, even more immobile than that of a botox patient. Leading actress Monet Mazur seems to try to save things a bit from time to time, but the lack of both story and dialogue also kills her modest efforts in advance.

‘Torque’ is unintentionally funny in its transparency: Major action films also extensively target the huge target group of colored young people, and always with the same tricks: Casting well-known rappers and/or R&B stars in supporting roles to bring the fans to the cinema. to lure. ‘Torque’ does this very flashy, however, by casting Onyx rapper Fredro Starr and R&B teenage star Christina Milian in small roles in addition to rapper Ice Cube. The problem is that biker gangs are originally white people, so how on earth do you write your dark target audience stars in a biker gang story? Well, just by introducing an all-black biker gang! A silly and hilarious solution that almost shows cynical humor, until you realize the producers mean it seriously.

Kahn has also decided to ignore all credibility for the greatest possible action scenes. He has not opted for an approach with tongue-in-cheek humor, as with films like Charlies Angels or almost every ‘James Bond’ film, which manage to get away with just as implausible action scenes.

All in all, the director has saddled himself with a series of hefty problems: little to no story, unbelievable over-the-top action, no characters, no dialogue, very flat target market marketing and no humor. A film that meets all these characteristics can sometimes unexpectedly become a cult classic by being legendary bad, but ‘Torque’ isn’t nearly that bad. In fact, the emptiness is so loudly shouted over by the beautiful filmmaking that the film is quite a pleasant seat.

Watching Torque at times gives you the same mix of pleasure and guilt as “Baywatch” did a few years ago, and most of Kahn’s videos do now; you know it’s not about anything, but still you keep looking. Because it’s secretly nice to turn off your brain every now and then and watch some beautiful people and spectacular action. As bad as ‘Torque’ is objectively seen, this film/video clip/video game still looks very nice.