7/24/12

A few weeks ago, John asked if I'd ever seen/heard of an Australian biker movie from the early ‘70s called “Stone.”  I had not.  I looked it up and read about it.  It sounded pretty good to me, and I assume to John as well because he bought a copy on DVD.  Saturday he passed aid DVD to me to watch.  Sunday morning I did.  It was… well, not “good” by any stretch.  It wasn’t so terrible that I felt like I'd wasted 99 minutes of my life, like I DID feel after that travesty “Iengleioureious Baeistaeierds.”  You know the one, the rewrite of history by that “Plump Friction” hack, Quincy Tarrantonio or whatever the fuck his name is, where Brad Pitt killed Hitler in a movie theater.  Fuck!  I hated that movie!  Anyhoo, “Stone” was nowhere near that bad.  Ok, it probably was, but I hate Quimby Tarrantula so much… let’s move on.  The problem I had with “Stone” was that it is often compared to “Mad Max” due to (tee hee, I said "doo doo!") the fact that a) it involves motorcycle gangs and a “rogue” cop and 2) it is Australian.  The fact the Hugh Keayes-Byrne is in both, playing roughly similar characters, fuels the comparison.  I really wanted to be able to say, “‘Stone’ is like ‘Mad Max’ from the biker’s point of view,” but I just can't do it.  It is very disjointed and confusing.  The acting is… marginal, not quite bad per se, but not all that good either.  The best way I can think to describe it is “Seventies porn with all the sex replaced by bike riding and exposition about the biker lifestyle.”  Ok, I just reread what I said up above about a “rogue” cop.  He really isn’t a “rogue” at all.  He has been sent to ride with the gang to finger out who’s been killing off their members.  He’s not undercover in the usual sense in that the gang KNOWS he’s a cop but reluctantly let him join/ride with them anyway.  He’s not after them for anything.  I don’t think “Spoiler Alert” will be necessary because the thing isn’t nearly deep enough to have anything like a spoilable dénouement.  So, here’s the poop.  The Grave Digger motorcycle gang, Sydney, shows up at a Green Movement, anti-pollution rally.  They, of course, heckle the speaker because they are antisocial bikers, not because they have anything against the Green Movement… at least nothing ever made it apparent that they did.  Anyhoo, during the speech, Hugh Keayes-Byrne’s character, Toad, goes wandering around in a drug induced haze.  THAT effect I will give them.  It was done pretty well.  I could totally relate to the visual sense that “we” were totally stoned out of our gourds.  Anyhoo, he stumbles upon a sniper on the roof of an adjacent building and sees him shoot the speaker.  The sniper sees Toad and tries to shoot him as well.  Meanwhile, in the confusion of the assassination, the gang saddles up and take off.  Toad is seen trying to tell his moll and the leader something but they force him onto his bike and everyone hauls ass.  Then the opening credits roll over close up shots of some dude firing up a motorcycle.  As he’s about to take off, we see another dude stringing a wire rope across the road.  Fwing!  Off comes the biker’s head.  Another biker is blown up, and a third is forced off the road into the ocean.  At the “funeral” of the drown biker, cops arrive to ask if the bikers know who might be killing them.  They tell the cops to “Piss off” as they feel they can handle the situation themselves.  At the Digger’s watering hole, a very cop-looking dude walks in and asks if he can ride with them to find out who’s doing the killing.  Of course the killer makes a play for them while Stone, the cop, is there trying to convince the bikers.  He saves their lives and they take a vote as to whether he can ride with them.  It is narrowly decided that he can and he’s told that someone will pick him up in the morning.  As he’s waiting for the escort, Stone tries to ‘splain to his girlfriend why he has to “babysit a bunch of mutants,” as she calls the assignment.  For some reason, she’s a fashion editor or something… it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to the story but is mentioned nonetheless so I'll mention it as well.  At the gang’s hideout Stone is initiated into the gang.  Then there is some kind of Rat Race between Stone and the gang’s fastest dude which Stone might have won had he not drug a peg and lifted his rear tire in a turn.  This, of course, gains him some measure of respect with the gang.  Stone, by himself, asks around about the gang and their enemies and winds up getting a new bike from his mechanic.  More exposition and stuff goes on back at the hideout ‘splainin how the gang came to be then they all go skinny dipping in the ocean.  After the swim, they go back to the bar where a rival gang picks a fight by kicking over Stone’s replacement bike.  Then we cut to a board room meeting of some sort and the villains are supposed to be revealed to us… but it really takes a leap of logic to get there.  My guess is these are the guys who the dude at the rally was railing about.  They ordered the assassination and are after the Diggers because Toad saw the shooter.  It’s the only explanation that makes any sense to me.  Mr. Big is told of the fight and how an ambush of the Diggers could be laid at the feet of the rival gang.  So, after being given the helmet of the drowned biker as a “gift” from the rival gang, the Diggers take off for the confrontation.  At the cemetery we see the heavies from the board meeting waiting to ambush the Diggers.  The Diggers get the jump on them though and Toad, after being shot, recognizes the shooter and tells everyone about it.  Stone, of course, has to threaten to kill the gang so he can take the shooter into custody thereby severing his ties with the Diggers.  Back at home, he once again tries to ‘splain to his girlfriend why he likes the Diggers and says he’d be glad to ride with them anytime.  At this, the door busts open and they all walk in, all happy like… until they grab the girl and beat the crap out of Stone.  They leave, taking the vest and earring indicative of membership in the Diggers, away from Stone.  When the girlfriend tries to call for help, Stone struggles to hang up the phone and says, “No Cops.”  The end.