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Indiana, the 1950s: Vance (Willem Dafoe) and his gang of bikers are on
their way to Daytona when they make a stop in a town so small the bikers
wonder if it's really a town or just a couple of houses that link the
garage to the motel/diner. Anyways, the bikers soon take over the town,
just to kill some time before moving on - when enter Telena (Marin
Kanter), a troubled yet mouthy young girl who immediately attracts the
attention of Vance - and after a spin through the countryside, the two
spend the night together ... only for her to be brutally dragged from his
room by her (armed) father the next morning. And this is where the
atmosphere between the bikers and the locals takes a nosedive, and fear,
loathing but maybe also envy towards our heroes slowly boils up - and all
the while Vance (and the audience with him) starts to suspect more and
more that there's something not quite alright behind closed curtains of
the small town and there might be more going on between Telena and her
dad, and that "more" might not exactly be healthy ... The
directorial debut feature by Kathryn Bigelow (and only directorial effort
by producer Monty Montgomery), this turns out to be a very interesting
movie: Sure it's an hommage to the 1950s, and especially The Wild One
was obviously a major influence, and on first look, it's a film full of
yesteryear's gestures and poses that often seem slightly artificial, and
in its fascination for chrome and leather even a bit fetishistic - so
one's tended to call it superficial. But the longer the film goes, the
more interesting its subtext becomes, the more weight is put on the story
between the lines, the things unsaid - which all lead to an explosive
climax. And this being Willem Dafoe's first lead role (at age 26), he
proves he has been the king of cool even back then. Well worth a look
for sure.
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