The Wheel Deal
When director Joseph Kahn was making his stunt-heavy motorcyclemovie Torque, he was careful to avoid duplicating the lookof a certain other vehicular-action franchise whose title shallremain nameless. Ah, screw it: “I hate those movies likeThe Fast and the Furious,” says the 31-year-oldvisionary who has directed videos for both Eminem (“WithoutMe”) and Moby (“We Are All Made of Stars”) — andlived!
“They look like shit. They have crappy lighting and cheesy dialogue.” Kahn says his film, which stars The Ring‘sMartin Henderson as a biker who is framed for killing the brother of afearsome gang leader (Ice Cube), succeeds because it ignores the peskylimitations of reality. “In The Fast and the Furious, you’resupposed to believe in that culture and that when those guys call eachother ‘bra,’ it’s, like, the coolest thing you’ve ever heard. I’ve madea movie that’s more ‘There’s no way they can do that on bikes!’ It’shyperreal.” Of course, not everyone on the Torque set sharedhis enthusiasm for hyperreality. “The producers wanted to do everything’real,’ rather than pay a little bit extra for fake and save people’slives,” Kahn says. “That’s not a fucking cool thing to put on adirector. Fuck Torque 2.”
