“Hell Ride’s” title may inspire you the daring thought of a transitory, yet fiery journey to hell. However, it does not necessarily mean that the film is so good that it reaches its intrepid goals in no time, but that the simple fact of finding yourself in a theatre and watching the Larry Bishop-directed, written and starred production feels like hell.

Narrated by several of its main characters, “Hell Ride” is a not-so-good biker movie that unfolds in numerous flashbacks, becoming somewhat twisted at some points. In spite of the fact that the plot is not knotty and complex at all, it gets pretty hard to follow, as the action budges from one time period to another in the same way as it jumps from one scene to the next.

After a turbulent opening that engages a bit of time-flip, the movie comes to a standstill on July 4, 1976 when several brutal incidents take place. An arrow cruelly penetrates the chest of a crook, a gang of potential wicked guys is roughly assaulted, while a beautiful young woman’s throat is violently cut in a stomach-turning close-up. All of a sudden, her body is covered in gasoline and she is set on fire, as her son is watching the whole scene from the door of their shoddy hotel.

Nevertheless, the atrocious events do not come to an end very soon, as the film now focuses on an incident which occurs thirty-two years later. A graying biker suffers the same imminent fate as the attractive woman, Cherokee Kisum (Julia Jones), did in the past, and it would not be very difficult to discover the connection between the two cases in the blink of an eye if the plot was not deliberately contorted.

The main character, Pistolero, impersonated by director Larry Bishop himself, is the head of the Victors biker band, who seeks to avenge the cruel murder of Cherokee Kisum. Together with The Gent (tux-guy Michael Madsen) and the young novice Comanche (Eric Balfour), Pistolero rides around scuffling and brawling in search of the more powerful and wicked 666 gang, supposedly responsible for the young woman’s death.

The coldblooded rival gang is led by the flattering Deuce, played by David Carradine, and Billy Wings (the constantly intimidating Vinnie Jones). What’s more, Eddie ‘Scratch’ Zero (Dennis Hopper) smirks his lighthearted way through the film, as he portrays a significant link-figure in what concerns the bygone crimes and Laura Cayouette escapes the spotlight, seeing that she is one of the numerous eye-catching, often topless women who wriggle around the bad guys and talk dirty.

If any of the story’s elements may seem funny or appealing, find out it is only a fleeting impression. The script is unacceptably mind-numbing, the superfluous violence is humdrum (cutting throats and flaming bodies may be a little too familiar) and the acting is very poor and flimsy, except for Dennis Hopper’s performance, who does a great job in mocking his own persona.

Finally, after all the overstuffed and shallow conversations are brought to an end, the bunches of women are humiliated, and the plot has been clumsily converted into chaos, the dreadfulness is entirely transmitted to the audience, if there’s any left after the first half of the “Hell Ride.”