Several years ago while visiting friends, I attended the ROT Biker Rally in Austin, Texas. I rode in on the back of a Harley. I browsed bike-building booths and tried on do-rags. But dressed in pastel cotton among a sea of black leather, I was about as out of place as a grown man at a Miley Cyrus concert. And as I watched Hell Ride the other night, I pretty much felt the same.

Hell Ride is a chopper film, a spaghetti western, and a recognizable property of the Quentin Tarantino franchise. The film and its story could be summed up in much the same way the characters sum up their life—Bikes, Booze, and Booty. Throw in several gun blazing take-downs, a few slit throats, and a scalping, and that's pretty much the whole movie. Seriously, it's like watching soft-core porn expressly produced for ex-bikers serving time for multiple counts of murder.

Jokes actor David Carradine (The Deuce), "When I first read the script, I said to Larry [Bishop], 'Where are you going to release this?'"

To believe that the amount of sex, bikes, and unflinching violence in Hell Ride is something that will appeal to audiences at large is delusional. Its testosterone-soaked construction pushes it about as far into guy movie territory as you can get. And even within the male demographic, the fan base ready to jump on board its bloody, bawdy tale of vengeance will still be limited.

That said, it cannot be denied that in its story and in its artistry, Hell Ride has something going on. In many ways, its style and characterization feels a bit like a return to a John Wayne western. For better or for worse, the bonds that tie its characters together speak to timeless themes of brotherhood and family. And with flashbacks, freeze frames, and a large handful of spot-on comic lines, scenes, and characters, there is the sense that you've somehow managed to stumble smack dab into the middle of the only biker-themed melodrama you'll ever see.

All in all, the story of Hell Ride is fairly straightforward. The event that sets everything in motion is the murder of St. Louie (Pete Randall)—of the biker gang the Vincents—at the hands of Billy Wings (Vinnie Jones) and The Duece—of the Vincents' rivals, the 666ers. From the get go, the name of the game is vengeance. Throw in another 666 murder in 1976, a boy who has been missing ever since, a treasure that has been awaiting his return, and a cloaked identity or two, and to the vengeance are added the additional themes of loyalty, family, and reunion.

As Carradine says, "There are no good guys in this movie&ellips; They're all bad guys, but they all have a certain honorable streak about them." And as the movie unfolds, you can't help but find yourself looking at the small pieces of honor and loyalty that remain and wondering what it is about them that allows them to still survive.

Perhaps the aspect of the film I found most fascinating, however, is the entire world that writer/director Larry Bishop creates—most noticeably the fact that aside from the two biker gangs, it is as if there is no one else left on earth. Sure, there are a few women. There are several scenes in bars and one at a beach party. But the strange thing is, the feel of almost every scene involving anyone besides the bikers is that of a mirage or hallucination. Every place they go is in the middle of nowhere. Every road they travel on is completely deserted.

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