Biker Boyz (2003)

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Six months after his father is killed by a low-flying motorcycle, precocious 18-year-old Kid (played by 29-year-old Derek Luke) returns to the urban biker scene, forming his own MC club—the camp-sounding Biker Boyz—so that he can claim himself the title of The King of Cali, currently held by biker legend Smoke (Laurence Fishburne).Clearly intended to glamorise the motorbike road racing scene in the same way Fast and the Furious films did for street car racing, Biker Boyz is a howlingly bad coming-of-age drama interspersed with ridiculous race scenes, all told without the slightest hint of irony. It's such a stereotypical stinker, packed to the rafters with rebellious teen clichés, that I couldn't help but enjoy myself just a bit.The good: the roving camera-work (especially the opening tracking shot), the trick-tastic bike riding, Meagan Good's cleavage.The bad (and consequently rather amusing): Kid Rock as a white trash biker named Dogg, an out-of-shape Laurence Fishburne beating up ripped Derek Luke, those nasty yellow Biker Boyz jackets, the lavish biker parties, the laughable dialogue loaded with ebonics. Tru dat.

Going for the Fast and Furious dollar, Biker Boyz is set in the Black community in Southern California. The vehicle of choice is motorbikes.We follow Kid (Derek Luke) the young motorcycle racer who wants to be 'King of Cali' the title held by Smoke (Laurence Fishburne) who is the leader of the Black Knights bike club.Smoke is reluctant to be challenged by the Kid and in response he starts his own club, the Biker Boyz as he sets out to be the fastest urban biker around.The film deals with racing camaraderie and rivalries as well as delving into father and son issues in a formulaic way but the racing scenes were insipid. It left me open mouthed to see how flatly they were filmed.

its a different and better movie than Fast and Furious. People that compare the two are missing the essence of both movies. Also much better than Torque, and once a again, that was a different movie to begin with. Both bike movies, but different. As much as other viewers, racers, bike riders or whoever else disagrees, this movie sheds a light on a variation of bike culture that is very real here in the United States. it wont appeal to all bikers probably, but it should. the characters in this film and the people they represent in real life love their bikes just as much as any other corner carver, stunter, etc. They just manifest it in a different way. as a movie, it has its shortcomings, but they are expected considering that this is a for-profit movie. not everyone can have enclosed helmets when you are paying the wearer gazillions of dollars to be IN the movie. Not every bike visual is going to be real speed/real time because that would be visually boring to a lot of people that are not enthusiasts. and I dare any other critic to name a better biker movie, or for them to post up when their's is releasing. this film, IMO, is nowhere near as bad as most of the posters are making it seem.

Biker Boyz is a film that is great despite its numerous flaws. The film is built using thousands of clichés and stereotypes untrue to the real world of street racing. However, despite its many flaws, which are numerous and obvious the films spirit is maintained and despite its poor score on IMDb viewed in the right way this film is incredibly good. There's a tendency to view a film coming out of the black community based on a mainly white area of life as poor before the film has even been watched. There's reasons for this and many films doing this are right to be critically panned. Some of the acting in the movie is poor, and whilst the plot is clichéd for the genre and the crew didn't do themselves any favours by not accentuating the emotional points of the plot, the film is still a solid and emotional drama. I gave this film 7 out of 10 due to the empathetic acting of Kid and Smoke (Fishbourne turns in a great performance) and hope that potential viewers aren't put off by the poor rating that it has received.