I believe a huge reason I like the old “Chopper Operas” of the 1950’s through the 1980’s is nostalgia. They are usually filmed in Southern California, where I’m originally from, and I can recognize many of the streets, bridges, and even the buildings used. The old school bikes and costumes were new at the time, and there’s usually an interesting contrast between characters dressed by the wardrobe department and actual bikers used as extras.
Nostalgia isn’t the only factor, but it’s one check in the “plus” column that newer exploitation films don’t get. Road To Paloma therefore starts at a disadvantage with its 2014 release date. What it does have is Jason Mamoa in his directorial debut while also taking on the lead role. Unfortunately that isn’t enough to rescue the film.
I’m left wondering if the movie will gain some “cool” as the decades pile on, but it is missing nearly every element a good movie needs. It’s not over-the-top and therefore able to make fun of itself — it’s a very serious movie. Serious movies require characters you care about, and none of the characters have much in the way of dimension.
Another thing Biker B-Movies often have is great B-roll and montages. Road to Paloma has non. Random on-the-road clips are places for no apparent reason throughout the film, and the individual shots are great, but cinematography is supposed to aid in the story telling as a whole, not just be a series of cool looking and well lit shots.
The story itself
You basically have Mamoa’s character “Wolf” (or Robert Wolf if you care), who is an American Indian who has recently avenged the murder of his mother. There’s lo real build up there to make you care though; clearly he loved his mom, she was raped and murdered, and the courts failed to convict. Wolf takes things into his own hands, and now the Feds are after him. Wolf scrapes together some cash to get his bike back from the local mechanic and goes on the run.
The problem there is you have zero tension throughout the film. He is more or less on a wandering road trip with some scenes randomly placed of the Federal agents picking up his trail, always a few steps behind. Wolf picks up his buddy Cash (Robert Mollohan), a raging alcoholic burnout with a beat up Yamaha Virago, and the two continue their rambling trip.
Scenes are thrown together seemingly at random, for no purpose other than the film needed some scenes to reach feature length. After enough wandering, you get the impression that the Feds are closing in. Wolf makes it to his sister’s place (Eva, played by Sarah Shahi) to take some of their mother’s ashes out to some mountains that are important for some reason.
You may have already guessed that the Feds catch up with him while he is burning sage and doing some sort of ceremony, though it’s odd they picked knee-deep water to have Momoa kneeling in, shirtless, with all the snow-capped hills around him. The music swells, he makes a run for it, there is a lot of slow motion, and I suppose I’ll let you find out yourself where the bullet lands… I don’t want to spoil what little plot there is.
After all, the pair of agents following him are a Fed (Williams, played by Timothy Murphy) who is clearly meant to be evil and uncaring, and either a local cop or a long-embedded Fed who knows Wolf personally (Shaeffer, played by Chris Browning). In the end, it’s Shaeffer with the rifle, being told by Williams to shoot, so there’s a chance our man could miss on purpose, or pop ol’ Wolf in the leg. It’s a pretty long shot too, and is once of the only redeeming qualities of the film: cinematography.
Again, the shot-for-shot doesn’t do much since it’s random, but each individual shot is very well done. The location they pick for the showdown is stunning, and the camera angles they use do a great job of showing the space Shaeffer is looking down on, trying to line up a shot on Wolf. The other real star of the film should be his bike, which looks like a highly customized 1948 but with a Panhead Harley engine.
The gratuitous amount of close up shots usually found in a chopper opera are not present in Road To Paloma, so you have to be satisfied with shots of it out on the road, usually with a setting sun.
That’s a wrap
And that’s all I can really say. The film is entirely lacking in characters that matter as well as tension between the protagonist and antagonist. It’s just a wandering film about nothing, then it ends. In fairness, the 1967 movie “Hells Angels On Wheels” is a favorite of mine and very similar. It is also set in 1960’s San Francisco and even has a cameo by Sonny Barger (the most famous Hells Angel of all time), and is aided by Jack Nicholson in the starring role.
They get away with a wandering story and one-dimensional characters because it’s the story of a drop out-type guy (Nicholson’s character, Poet) who falls in with a biker gang and all the weirdness that comes with. There’s a love interest, a weird subculture to explore, and of course the nostalgia factor as they wander around California and Nevada.
There’s nothing that makes me care about Wolf or any of the people he encounters. There’s just no damn story, no depth to the characters, no stunts, and very little conflict beyond people who are just really crappy to themselves, creating all their own problems in life. Despite me being a similar kind of guy, I don’t relate. I’m not so screwed up I’m sleeping in alley’s blind drunk, waking up covered in blood and bruises with no idea why (yes that’s a scene early in the movie).
So in short, I’m going with a thumbs down on this one. Not worth it for the story, the characters, or the world. Maybe it’ll be cool in 50 years, but they feature cars and motorcycles that are already vintage, so I don’t know how it will look with decades of hindsight. Even if it doesn’t gain cult status, stills from the movie would make an amazing coffee table book. The cinematography is the clear stand-out performer of Road to Paloma.
Johnny Killmore 