Rennie Scaysbrook | August 7, 2024
Motorcycle racing films, especially fictional drama-based ones, have got to be one of the hardest to pull off. Indeed, motorcycle racing is filled with so much natural drama one could argue there’s no real need to manufacture it, but that wouldn’t really fly with anyone who isn’t a die-hard racing fan.
Written and directed by Kelly Blatz, led by lead actor, New Zealand’s KJ Apa, and supported by Eric Dane (of Grey’s Anatomy fame), Maia Reficco and Edward James Olmos, One Fast Move attempts to weave in the human interest/real life drama the public demand with the blood pumping excitement motorcycle racers are all too familiar with.
The story line is predictable enough in a troubled young man Wes Neal (Apa) seeks reconciliation with his estranged father, Dean Miller, played by Dane. The only catch is Neal wants Miller, who works at a shop run by Olmos’ character, Abel, to get him into road racing and eventually to turn professional.
Blatz then has a job on his hands to explain just how tough motorcycle racing is to the layman, the dedication and extensive time and resources required to even get to a reasonable club racing level (let alone to be a professional), and some of these areas are too glossed over.
Unfortunately, there are some unrealistic parts of the film, such as Apa training in an almost Rocky-style setting inside Atlanta Motor Speedway’s confines, to Apa committing the cardinal racing sin of turning around and riding the wrong way up live race track at the film’s conclusion, an act that would get you slammed with a heavy fine at best, or, more likely, banned from racing.
Neal and Camila’s emerging romance gives the film some added depth.
The love story that develops between Apa and Reficco holds the film together, as Reficco does an admirable job of playing the girlfriend who has her own young family to support while trusting a man who seems a lost cause on the surface and understand his obsession with speed and racing.
Without doubt the worst character in the film is Dane’s portrayal of Wes’ estranged father, Dean Miller. Dane does a great job of playing the egoistical and downright full of himself ex-racer, an excruciating character Blatz said was a bit of an amalgamation of various people he’d met while researching the club racing scene in California—sadly, this is someone we’ve seen too many times in real life.
However, there is some redemption for Miller, who takes on the job of training and nurturing his son in a way that shows the character isn’t entirely self-centered.
Edward James Olmos provides a touch of humility to the film, as he’s done in so many of his past roles. The shop Olmos runs is a struggling one and he’s got one foot out the door after so many years of struggling away in the motorcycle industry (an all too familiar story), but his character Abel takes Wes under his wing and becomes somewhat of a father figure, filling the role Miller should never have run away from.
One Fast Move was put together with the help of many club racers in the southeast, who donated their time to set up mock pits for various scenes in the movie. It reaches its climax around the undulating twists and turns of Michel Raceway Road Atlanta in which father and son meet on the racetrack, but I won’t ruin the ending for you here.
There’s a touch of Days of Thunder and a little sprinkling of the famed Supercross film of 2005 in how One Fast Move is created and set. Don’t go expecting huge plot twists with this film, but it’s a good watch and should open the public’s eyes to just how intense motorcycle racing really is.
One Fast Move is out on Amazon Prime Video on August 8, 2024.
