Ford: I live my life a quarter-mile at a time.
Shane: ...That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Shane: ...That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
— Ford borrows a line from a certain other film and gets owned in response
The Fast and the Furious... WITH MOTORCYCLES!
Torque is a 2004 action film directed by Joseph Kahn.
Martin Henderson plays Badass Biker Cary Ford. 6 months prior to the events of the film, Henry James (Matt Schulze), the leader of a biker gang called the Hellions requested he look after some bikes. When trying to move them, however, Ford found crystal meth in the fuel tanks. Ford hid the bikes and fled to Thailand, where has has been for six months, leading the police to believe he is a drug dealer and Henry to believe he stole his bikes. Now Ford's returned to the states to reconcile with his girlfriend Shane (Monet Mazur). Henry's still pissed, so he frames Ford for the murder of the younger brother of Trey (Ice Cube), the leader of a rival biker gang called the Reapers. Motorcycle chases ensue...
This film provides examples of:
- Advertised Extra: Christina Milian is credited in the beginning of the film as part of the main cast. In the actual film, her character, Nina, is a Satellite Love Interest with just four scenes of screen time, making her more of a minor character in the cast.
- All Bikers Are Hells Angels: The Hellions are easily the most prominent example of them all, looking rather intimidating and fearsome, though the Reapers aren't too far behind, albeit more downplayed.
- Asshole Victim: Junior. You have to admit. He was a complete Jerkass throughout the beginning of the film who kind of had it coming after trying to get his gang to sell drugs.
- Badass Biker: Pretty much all the characters who ride motorbikes, with Ford being the obvious example.
- The Cameo: When Shane and Ford argue in her shop, she angrily tells another customer they're closed. The other customer is Jesse James from Monster Garage.
- Camping a Crapper: Henry instigates a brawl at a club, which causes Junior to hightail it inside a bathroom, where he is confronted and killed by Henry.
- Car Cushion: The final chase ends with Ford landing on Henry and his bike after he does a Ramp Jump try to escape a Vapor Trail… which he doesn't, leaving a very dead Henry as a result.
- Car Fu: Aside from bikes and cars crashing into each other, it's taken to absurdity in the Designated Girl Fight when the two fighters try to roundhouse kick each other with the bikes at one point.
- Chase Scene: Lots of them. Two of the most notable are the one that takes Ford and Trey over and inside of a passenger train and the final chase between Henry and Ford, with their custom bikes going so fast they leave hurricane-style winds behind them.
- Chekhov's Gun: Dalton cuts the chain off Henry's bike. Said chain is used by Henry to murder Junior and frame Ford for said murder.
- Clear My Name: Ford must travel back to the garage he stashed Henry's bikes smuggled with crystal meth inside and lure Henry to them while getting McPherson there as well to prove that he isn't a drug dealer and that he wasn't the one who killed Junior.
- Cool Bike: Almost every bike in the film, most notably the MTT Y2K Turbine Superbike, which is mentioned to have the engine of an Apache helicopter and demonstrates the borderline physics-defying amounts of horsepower it has in the final bike chase.
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: China's fate is sealed this way at the climax when Shane kicks the former off her bike and through the windshield of a car during the Designated Girl Fight mentioned below.
- Designated Girl Fight: The climax has three fights going consecutively, with one of them being Shane and Henry's black leather-clad girlfriend engaging in an uproariously unrealistic Car Fu duel with their bikes.
- Frame-Up: The main plot starts with Henry framing Ford for murder, causing Ford to ride across the country to return to the garage in order to get Henry arrested by the police.
- Goomba Stomp: During the chase between Henry and Ford at the climax, Ford lands on top of Henry after riding his bike off a ramp and ends up using him as a surfboard through the road right before he flies off after the tremendous explosion.
- Heartbeat Soundtrack: Done twice. The first time is during Ford and his friends' interaction with the Reapers after Trey tells them he'll let them off with a pass under the condition of giving Junior a new bike to replace the old one that was destroyed. The second time this is played is during the night club after a massive fight when Junior runs into the bathroom to find that Luther is in there as well.
- Hero Antagonist: Trey, leader of the Reapers biker gang, goes after Ford to do him in. But he's just avenging the death of his brother and only learns about the true killer towards the end.
- Jerkass:
- Junior, Trey's younger brother, is a belligerent hothead who often picks fights with Ford and his friends for minor incidents.
- McPherson, who is often full of himself and doesn't treat Henderson as a partner, even going as far as to shoot her at the spot.
- Henry James, a redneck who is responsible for Ford being framed for murder and is even physically rough on his own partner. The rest of the Hellions also count.
- Jive Turkey: Ice Cube is in this movie, and he's the leader of an African American biker gang.
- Just Train Wrong: The entire train scene, where a chase between Ford and Trey ensues..
- Karmic Death: Luther is hung with a chain- the same method he used to kill Junior, Trey even Lampshades this by saying "Ain't that ironic"?
- Knight Templar Big Brother: The reason Trey and his gang go after Ford: Ford's rival Henry frames Ford for the murder of Trey's little brother. Of course, Ford is able to convince Trey that Henry was the one who committed the murder.
- Made of Iron: So many examples, such as McPherson and Henderson surviving after their SUV smashed into a car upside down, Henderson surviving the explosion, but the most ridiculous of them all is during the climax, with Ford somehow surviving a massive explosion (that manages to kill Henry) and flies about 20 feet in the air on to the asphalt partially on fire while just avoiding getting his head crushed under the tire of a bus, all without his helmet, mind you.
- Nitro Boost: The Y2K has this in full effect, so much it has the viewers wondering how Ford and Henry managed to zoom past so much traffic on the road.
- Not Good with Rejection: Twofold for Henry. When he is denied by Trey to make a drug deal, Henry does two things in response. The first thing he does is murder Trey's brother, the guy who made the drug deal with Henry, and the very next thing is to frame Ford for the murder, as the latter refused to cooperate when Henry demanded for his bikes back.
- Product Placement: Check out the Pepsi and Mountain Dew signs covering the entire ends of an alleyway during the Designated Girl Fight.
- Racing the Train: A variant happens in the chase scene between Trey and Ford, where they chase each other in bikes along a train, then taken from the top of a train to the front of it.
- Railroad Tracks of Doom: Trey gets caught in his own bike in the middle of the tracks, and Ford rescues him right before the two jump out of the way just in time for the train to close in and run over the bike, causing it to explode.
- Rule of Cool: There are scenes that use CGI to achieve what stuntmen couldn't do because physics doesn't work that way in real life. The final chase scene between Ford and Henry stands out in particular with their bikes breaking the sound barrier and causing sonic booms that destroy public property.
- Rule of Fun: The most likely justification for the overwhelming unrealism.
- Satellite Love Interest: Nina becomes Val's girlfriend, but is only shown in four scenes note with only five lines of dialogue and has no significant role to the plot whatsoever.
- Shout-Out: At one point you can see a red Valiant drive by and then a large filthy tanker truck drives a biker off the road.
- Sinister Suffocation: Henry does this to Junior with the former's own bike chain, strangling the latter to death.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Junior's murder at the hands of Henry is what kick-starts the whole plot.
- Speed Demon: Cary Ford loves going fast. He is basically Dominic Toretto with a preference for bikes over cars due to the former being smaller and easier to maneuver.
- Stealth Parody: According to Joseph Kahn himself
and to recent interviews with Adam Scott (who plays an FBI agent), the movie was mostly intentional in its ridiculousness. Kahn assumes 75% of the movie he wanted to make was in the final effort and that the lack of physics and the general over-the-top nature was entirely intended. - Stuff Blowing Up: Thrice. First when Trey's bike explodes after it is ran over by the train, with both Ford and Trey jumping out of the way in time after Ford rescues Trey from meeting his demise of getting ran over by the latter vehicle. Next is when Henderson blows up the building, which Trey, Val, and Dalton quickly escape out of while McPherson is fatally blown away. And the final one is during the chase scene between Ford and Henry, in which after flying off a ramp and landing on top of Henry, Ford road surfs him and the former's bike and jumps out just in time to avoid the explosion.
- Take That!:
- At one point The Fast and the Furious (2001) is directly referenced/insulted. Ford borrows Vin Diesel's line, "I live my life a quarter-mile at a time," to which Shane replies, "That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard."
- The film seems to just have it at cars. At the beginning of the film, just after Ford outruns two cars (which look like having come out of a Fast and Furious film), the gush of wind made by his bike's high speed makes a sign street address spin in a way that it's made to look as if it reads "Cars Suck."
- Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: Trey kills Luther by hanging him with his own chain.
- There's No Kill like Overkill: Henry during the climax gets caught in a tremendous explosion and is fatally incinerated as a result.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It was Dalton cutting the chain off Henry's motorbike that caused the latter to use said bike chain to strangle Junior to death with it and frame Ford for the murder.
- Vapor Trail: The fire can chase down a bike said to have a top-speed of 200 mph.
- Verbal Tic: Henry often speaks in what many would call a "loud whisper", in that he often talks with a low-pitched, menacing tone of voice and is rarely heard yelling.
- Wrench Wench: Shane, who had once owned a mechanic shop before McPherson tore it down..