Ride or Die

How many cable TV channels are there in America now? Each one has to provide 168 hours of programming a week, 8736 hours year. So, say 100 stations, that’s 873 600 hours a year they gotta fill.

Here’s something they prepared to fill the popular 3:30am Thursday slot.

Ride or Die is a pilot for a television show that is so rich in cliché as to be looked back upon by future historians as a tool of reference for the early 21st century.

You can imagine a dusty old gent speaking in a darkened amphitheatre, the only light the nano-tech overhead projector casting an image onto the screen behind him:

"You can plainly see here the classic use of a black man dressed in cool apparel showcasing the imaginative game of basketball. Here too, in later scenes, we will see him thinking whilst shooting hoops, but for now he is just being attractive to many, many scantily clad women. These roamed the wilds of Los Angeles in packs at this time and it is hard work to find a cop show or action movie without them." Click. "Yes, now here we can plainly see a hot laboratory technician wearing her best hoop earrings and full makeup, probably used to shield her from the masses of ozone layers that were bombarding the greenhouse at this time. The white coat denotes her as a genius and she will no doubt help the investigation by kung-fu fighting another scantily clad Asian women in black leather later on. She may also provide sexual relief for the lead male to show he’s fly."

Click.

"Moving on we see here a funeral scene for a black rap artiste brutally gunned down. Note everyone wears black suits worth several K, and there is an a cappella spiritual version of Amazing Grace being performed." Click. "Now we see the male protagonist on a motorcycle with deliberate disregard for the helmet laws of the time. As we watch, a car chases him with several innocent bystanding cars being damaged, including two in an intersection crashing after the speeding chase has passed by. Finally, the chase culminates in a classic cliché of the motorcycle sliding under a moving truck." The lights go up, everyone blinks once or twice and the guy asks, "Any questions?"

There are a lot of clichés like these, trying to make a show about a private investigator whose best friend (a rap superstar) is killed. The cops don’t know who did it; they think it was a murder suicide. Naturally, the P.I. friend feels this doesn’t ring true and investigates. Enter almost naked women, bumbling bodyguards, a crime lord whose front is a record company, plenty of black slang like ‘Aiight’ and ‘Word, dawg’ and lots of kung-fu and gunfights in which no-one takes a bullet and you got Ride or Die.

"You can’t have that baby, baby!"

I don’t even know what the title means. It’s not mentioned anywhere in the film.

It’s not all that bad, just jam packed with clichés and mindless plot and some poor acting from rap guys. They rap real good, but can’t act.

If this sounds like your bag, hey, knock yourself out. Go nuts. Aiight.

There’s a subtle graininess that permeates this film throughout. There are scads of night shots and these are loaded with grain. If you sniffed it, I’m sure it’d smell like gunpowder residue from a recently fired gun. Other than this, it resembles a film shot over 18 days of 2003. Flesh tones are fine throughout (and there's plenty of it, as noted) and colours look well saturated. Blacks are realistic and the shadow detail, while suffering that grain, is still fairly good. It’s delivered here in 1.78:1 with 16:9 enhancement as well.

Although delivered here in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, this seems generally limited to the music. Being mainly a rap/hip hop fuelled musical score, the subwoofer rumbles pretty much constantly throughout the film’s 84 minutes. Dialogue is clear enough, although there’s some confusing gangsta slang I couldn’t quite understand because it gets run together a little sloppily. Also, too many gunshots, not enough claret. The shots all sound similar and are loud but never hit anything. Like, not even the walls behind the guys being shot at.

Oh well.

A dubious and small grouping.

The first is the audio commentary with lone gunman director Craig Ross Jr. Singly, these things are usually boring and here Mr. Ross is true to form. He speaks about how great the cast is, and plenty of mundane info about the shoot. Also, he says the lead actor guy, Duane Martin co-wrote the script and wrote all his own gags. There were gags?

Next are the only other extras in trailers for Ride or Die and xXx. Figures.

Another pilot for an American cable show makes it to Orstraylia as a DVD release. While this has some content, it’s really just phuff and nothing we’ve not seen before. Too many bikini chicks and fat rappers for it to possibly be real, not to mention the endless gunfights with no result.

Rent or Don’t.