Exit Speed

Exit Speed

On Christmas Eve, army deserter Meredith Cole (Julie Mond) managed to get away from military policeman Archie Stokes (Fred Ward) and takes a bus across Texas. When they are deep in the wilderness, they encounter a hyped up, drug addicted biker who kills several of the bus passengers, as well as the bus driver until Meredith takes him out and gets shot.

More aggressive bikers ram the bus and, together with Sam (Desmond Harrington), a hitchhiker; Maudie (Lea Thompson), a working mother; Annabel (Alice Greczyn), a lovely comic book artist; Jerry (Gregory Jbara), a grumpy football coach, Mexician handyman Vargas (Everett Sifuentes), cowardly Duke (Nick Sowell) and his girlfriend Desiree (Kelli Dawn Hancock), these bus passengers take shelter at an upscale junkyard in an abandoned scrap metal yard. When the bikers launch an attack on their defenses, the captives decide to fight back.

Deliberate or not, Exit Speed bears quite a resemblance, almost too much, to John Ford’s western stagecoach (1939), replacing a stage with a bus, angry Indians with a group of drug addicted bikers and a macho looking Julie Mond is essentially the feminine version of John Wayne. Just like Wayne’s hero, the Ringo Kid, Meredith Cole is on the wrong side of the law, in this case military law, but still risks her life for the sake of others.

Michael Stokes, who screen wrote and produced other children’s animated movies like Jane and the Dragon (2005) and occasional live action DTV movies like Iron Eagle IV (1994) and Shadow Builder (1998), takes out elements of plot from various films including Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and the Hills have eyes (1977). Exit Speed does not belong to their class but nevertheless comes up a pretty decent B-movie.

Everything is balanced sensibly and Scott Ziehl does well in directing thrilling moments in the film. Most significantly, the story regards outsiders as people with the potential to impact and make society better. Just like how Stagecoach has presented it, the people in the film are survivors who represent America in some way with each having their own conflict.

Maudie has fought cancer, Annabel is socially awkward and plays too much RPGs, and Vargas hardly speaks any English. However through these difficult circumstances, each of them possesses a hidden talent that is useful: Maudie was a marathon runner, Annabel was an archer, and Vargas was the Latin MacGyver. Naturally, a gun-wielding coach Jerry acts along the lines of the miserable middle aged man from Night of the Living Dead (1968) and starts off as an obnoxious bully, but he redeems himself in the end.

Surprisingly, Set in Dallas Texas, away from the usual Hollywood machinery, the film does very little with its Christmas setting other than having heroines called anonymous bikers by reindeers. Some attempts for pathos cross the line into silly and one could invent a fair drinking game over how many times do characters scream “hey asshole!” just before shooting a bad guy.

The bikers are stick similar to bad guys like in these death wish sequels or sci-fi Italian post apocalyptic movies: all piranhas with clown’s make up. But the movie does have plenty of over the top scenes. Some humorous and some quite touching such as Annabel’s moral crisis “I can’t shoot an arrow in a person.

I’m vegan!” or Maudie crying “I have kids!” while dry humping a biker to death. A strong ensemble cast takes on Stokes’ pacy screenplay, with Thompson once again showcasing her chops as a character actress, Greczyn’s who is fantastic in this endearing role, and Mond who is a badass soldier girl. I think John Wayne would give an approving nod.

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