Very rich men like it when THE CARS GO RULLY FAST. It's Redline, the 2007 "Action Thriller" about cars, and the racing there of.
The plot for this film was all over the place but I will try to sum it up in a nutshell; Natasha Martin (Nadia Bjorlin) sings in a band but can drive a car very well and very quickly, finds herself embroiled in a racing gambit after a rapper with a crap name (Infamous... what bollocks) accidentally loses her, in a race she only agreed to drive in as a favour, to total bellend; Michael D'Orazio. Meanwhile, 2-dimensional fresh-out-the-army Carlo (Nathan Phillips) raging about the death of his douchebag brother whilst he was racing for Michael in the aforementioned race 'rescues' Natasha BUT they have to race one more time for Michael to save Natasha's mother, who got kidnapped by Michael, but then right at the end Natasha throws the race because Carlo has already rescued her mum, and they live happily ever after in their Lambo's and their Ferrarri's.
Christ on a bike, this film was a struggle. When I was 15 I was quite into the whole street racing thing. I played Need For Speed Underground 2 on PS2, I went the cinema to watch 2 Fast 2 Furious and dreamed about driving a Nissan Primera (I dunno, just really liked them?), but I think even 15 year old me would have thought this was bum gravy. It starts off all about racing, then they shoehorned in some part where it goes all full on James Bond / Mission Impossible in the last half hour at the mansion, then it's back to racing again?! It's a right chop 'n shop.
One dimensional, plastic characters with personalities so transparent you could read a newspaper through them, token 'hired goons' with no fucking personality at all, girls with their tits out and \ or dressed in skimpy outfits serving as nothing more than sex objects, even Natasha - her whole central role is basically as an object of desire for the ensemble cast of male androgynous stereotypes, a cringe worthy nu-metal and hip hop soundtrack that has aged like a fine milk, Natasha's band just generally being god fucking awful, and a stifling, boring plot about money motivated bad guys and getting revenge.
The only slightly redeeming aspect of this film was that the racing scenes, for the most part, were pieced together pretty well. There were moments that looked so obviously sped up for effect and some of the CGI with the car stunts was so blatantly, hamfistedly sandwiched in, but broadbrushly speaking there was some nice cars being filmed driving very quickly.
They were going for the Lamborghini Gallardo of racing movies, but instead they left the garage with a Fiat Punto Sporting and the only thing more embarrassing than that is having to pretend that Natasha's band were actually good. Redline? More like Flatline. 1 out of 5.
