You'll want to see "Hell Ride," but maybe the trailer would be better

If you're one of the roughly four people who saw the brilliant "Grindhouse," you'll want to check out "Hell Ride."

When I say "you'll want to," I mean that will be your initial impulse.

Exec-produced by "Grindhouse" mastermind and cult-movie connoisseur Quentin Tarantino, this is like a fleshed-out version of one of its priceless trailers for nonexistent drive-in exploitation flicks. In fact "Hell Ride" would have been better as one of those trailers.

Still, it's the shot of a lifetime for writer, director, star and co-producer Larry Bishop, son of the late Joey and (formerly) obscure actor who appeared in such cult classics as "Wild in the Streets," "The Savage Seven" and "Chrome and Hot Leather." He drew the Powerball from the same ultrageek whose fandom resuscitated the careers of John Travolta and David Carradine. And he's pretty cool.

Smoky-voiced, devilish-looking and leathery of skin, Bishop is Pistolero, leader of a biker gang called the Victors, whose other members include the homicidal, tux-wearing Gent (Michael Madsen, "Kill Bill") and young new guy Comanche (Eric Balfour). A gang war begins after one of the Victors eats it at the hands of the rival 666ers, whose psychotic honcho Billy Wings (Vinnie Jones) has a memorably nauseating monologue about the origins of his wing tattoos. (Fun touch: When a character's introduced, his name and club symbol appear on the screen.) At the same time, some of Pistolero's Victors are beginning to shift loyalties. And all the events are somehow tied to a repeated flashback of the throat-cutting and immolation of a woman by bikers, which a boy (who's now one of the adult bikers) witnessed way back in 1976.

That's right, this takes place in the present.

Dig it: In 2008, yuppie scum park their immaculate Hogs outside pubs where they quaff microbrews as expensive as a gallon of gas; tattoos are no longer earned and every sorority girl has one; and drive-ins have nearly completed their sad extinction. Outside of the atmosphere of the mid-'60s to mid-'70s, biker gangs like the Victors don't even make any sense. But this movie exists in its own time-warped universe, which is heavily infused with a spaghetti-Western aesthetic. Sounds great on paper. Even elder-statesmen Carradine and Dennis "Easy Rider" Hopper are on board.

But even in its own universe, "Hell Ride" doesn't make a great deal of sense or add up to much. It's mainly 85 minutes of posing, particularly Bishop sticking out his pelvis. The movie begins with Pistolero gutshot with an arrow, flashes back to events leading up to it, and then he gets it pulled out and just walks around the rest of the movie like it didn't happen. The hyper-stylized dialogue too often veers into the unintentionally laughable but does include the instant classic, "Did you bring the peyote? I got some thinkin' to do."

To his credit, though, Bishop takes the exploitation part of the job seriously, heaping on plenty of violence, nudity, Hunter Thompsonian drug use, and language that'll fry the innards of one of those ClearPlay machines when it hits DVD. Which I'll bet will be soon.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259

or mrahner@seattletimes.com