Revenge Ride

Revenge Ride

With a plot that had potential but barely scratched the surface of violence against women, Revenge Pose is presented in Daughters of Anarchy costume and depicts deeply toxic themes but never succeeds in engaging with or offering any meaningful commentary on sadism and aggression that is shown throughout the film.

Mary (Vanessa Dubasso) reaches out to her cousin Maggie (Serinda Swan) after her beating in a college frat party due to her fears of not being heard by the authorities. Maggie is a member of Dark Moon leading an all-female motorcycle club composed of amazing Trigga (Pollyanna McIntosh). The female motorcycle troupe develops plans for revenge over the males who assaulted Mary, however this idea has come in a conflict when Maggie develops feelings for a college student Brian (Diego Boneta) and is drawn to Trigga’s’ fiery desire for revenge.

Revenge Ride strikes the viewer as a primitive film in its conception. The concept of an all-woman biker gang pulling off revenge acts was obviously the type of thing seen as ferocious and aggressive in older films. But now, with characters like Rhaenyra Targaryen from House of the Dragon or Shuri and Okoye from the Black Panther universe who are multilayered and unapologetic, it’s very hard to believe that putting tattoos on a character, a biker’s jacket and having her scream the F word is enough to make any character a real one.

Especially when a character goes through a character-driven development and reaches the point where she understands how to outsmart others, as seen in Promising Young Woman, where she displayed that female revenge flicks exhibit true and sorrowful sociological discourse towards men, it feels rage-inducing that other films leaning into the same theme such as Revenge Ride feel unoriginal and cliché.

However, it should be qualified that this is not a film that can be considered a classic. The movie fails to explain why the women are so attached to the gang. Perhaps it is her past scars and a little of a broad stroke of sisterhood that somehow makes the ferocious Trigga so adored. The one character whose attraction to the group does not need stating is Mary but the film’s decision to make Maggie the protagonist diverts what would appear to be a straightforward theme of how reclaiming power and agency is attractive, but how the same power can corrupt.

This is the way that Mary was molded instead. In this structure, the audience feels that the character of Mary way too passive in his own narrative. And on such coordination failing to explain the importance of the gang on such resolve, the changes in relations between Maggie and Trigga to the extent that they become strained and that spells doom for the gang make for not so captivating a development in the drama.

There are a few elements in the film that are interesting, but they are less developed for example, the college team coming in to defend Mary’s assailants because they excel in football or Mary herself not being able to get justice for the attack on her person. It’s one thing to fetishize revenge against twenty-something dolts in Greek wear, but it’s a missed opportunity to explore the numerous dynamics that exist in the real world that ensure people above such base existence remain untouchable and are instead satisfied with an overall ‘gang warfare’ theme.

The entire movie is riddled with cringe-inducing dialogue, with the earlier mentioned F bombs dropped in half of the scenes as if it was meant to signify how great everyone is. Other bits are clichéd in nature, and the story is narrated through sound bites. Of course, nobody thinks of Shakespeare while watching a Biker revenge film but there is a serious need for more complex and unique.

It’s disappointing that these do not come from the cast either, with McIntosh doing a bad impression of her Walking Dead role and Dubasso hardly manages to do justice to Mary’s rage. Swan has more than enough potential too but the fact that she is not able to utilize it gives the overall purpose of her character even more absurdity.

The visuals quite alright and the use of some scenes is also good but quite other than that there is nothing worthwhile about Revenge Ride. A film which perhaps had some merits as a very silly B movie or a mindless gore movie, everything was exciting and there’s a different in tone, a far more serious subject matter that requires sophistication in terms of storytelling, a different perspective altogether in the year 2023.

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