“One Fast Move” is several scenes of solid if unspectacular motorcycle racing and stunt driving footage in search of a plot.
Actor turned writer-director Kelly Blatz (“Senior Love Triangle”) never rises above banality with a sentimental story of fathers and sons and racing the clock on a racing dream when “your expiration dates’s fast approaching.”
Basically, it’s an inefficient delivery vehicle for sports movie bromides and cliches, almost all of them growled by Eric Dane of “Euphoria” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”
As the father-he-never-knew for dishonorably discharged misfit son Wes (K.J. Apa of “Riverdale”), Dane rattles through salty motivational quotes.
“Grip it and rip it!” “Unless you’re willing to risk everything, you’re already dead.” “You’ll be chewing old gum off the asphalt!” “Repeat after me, ‘I don’t know how to ride.” “You don’t even CRASH right.”
There’s barely enough screen time for Apa or grizzled screen legend Edward James Olmos to get in a cliche edgewise.
Wes misbehaves on a bike, is arrested by the MPs and drummed out of the military, which sends him in search of the man his mother told him was his father. Racing legend Dean Miller (Dane) is cocky, grumpy and way too old to be burning up the track on 600cc Supersports. But here he is.
Dean’s all old trophies and swagger and closing the bar down and waking up with a stranger most mornings. He works on bikes in Georgia shop for aged ex-racer Abel (Olmost). That’s where the kid lands, given a job when his dad finally agrees to “train” him for the track.
First, a misguided dash down the Dragon’s Tail to establish how reckless the “kid” is. Then, track time, running the stairs of the stadium training montages, and endless in-the-helmet-intercom advice from the white-haired hardcase who is still nobody’s “idea of a father.”
“It’s either full throttle or full brakes! Everything in between is for pussies!”
Maia Reficco of TV’s “Kally’s Mashup” and “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin” is Camilla the cute waitress who attracts the ex-con’s romantic attention. There’s barely a whiff of character scripted into this overfamiliar part.
Sketch in a generic “rich brat” villain on the track, and that’s that, or so thought Blatz. And his agent. And Amazon.
Dane dominates the picture, which among all the bad to middling things about “One Fast Movie,” isn’t a bad thing. If he’s auditioning to be the new white-haired villain hunk, as Neal McDonaugh closes in on 60, this could be the gateway role to that.
Rating: R, violence, alcohol abuse, sex, profanity
Cast: K.J. Apa, Eric Dane, Maia Reficco and Edward James Olmos.
Credits: Scripted and directed by Kelly Blatz. An MGM/Amazon Studios release on Amazon Prime.
Running time: 1:47
