Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

This movie is like a longer, very well written and slightly more violent than normal episode of Walker, Texas Ranger…and I mean that in a complimentary and completely unsnarky way. Throw in some gratuitous nudity and Exit Speed would have made a worthwhile drive-in flick about 30some years ago. It's a solidly written, effectively directed and well performed melodrama.The plot is straight forward. A bus full of people heading down a Texas highway runs into a gang of violent and crazy bikers. The bus folk end up running over and killing two of the bikers, leading the rest of the gang to chase them down a back road and into a deserted junkyard where the bus passengers barricade themselves in and try and hold off their menacing enemies until they can figure out how to get help. I know that doesn't sound like much of a story, but it works because these filmmakers give all the bus passengers fairly distinct personalities and purposes to serve while keeping the audience genuinely in suspense as to how many of them, if any, are going to survive. None of it is terribly complex or deep. It's just simple, direct and engaging.Now, Exit Speed does have a decent-sized flaw in that the biker gang is never anything but a generic threat. They have no individual personalities or even any lines of dialog. You could have replaced them with a pack of wild coyotes or escaped lions from a traveling circus and there's very little you'd have to change about the story. And for some reason, the bikers are repeatedly shown doing these little riding tricks, like wheelies or there's this one guy who stands on top of his motorcycle and surfs it as it goes down the road. Apparently, these filmmakers thought showing violent, drug-addicted gang members doing these little riding tricks would make them seem more intimidating. It really, really, really doesn't. It makes them look more like hardware store owners and accountants who pretend to be a biker gang on the weekends. These crack smoking savages also demonstrate a level of patience, restraint and tactical thinking that's hard to believe.The flatness of its villains doesn't detract from the overall enjoyable nature of this film. There's efficient and unpretentious storytelling at work here that I quite liked. Now, I have seen a lot of cinematic excrement, movies so poorly written, asininely directed and atrociously acted that I may be over praising Exit Speed a bit. This isn't anything more than a thoroughly competent and professionally constructed "B" movie, but I've seen so many failed attempts at this exact same thing that I want to acknowledge when it's done well.

Whatever entertainment this rehash of John Carpenter's Assault On Precinct 13 may have provided is undone by lame attempts on the part of the filmmakers to score cheap political points.The whole thing's basically an exercise in politically correct stereotyping. The heroine is an AWOL Iraq War vet/victim, apparently forced into the military by her mean, draft-dodging politician dad, giving a few characters a chance to (yawn) take pot-shots at Bush/Cheney.As the other smart and righteous characters, there's a single mom (Lea Thompson sure has sunk!), a hippie vegan girl, a black girl, and a Mexican guy. Unfortunately for the superior folks, they're saddled with a few stupid white men who act like blow-hard jerks.However, there is one token smart white guy. Though he's been on hard times and learned the error of his white-devil ways. More importantly, he's sooo cute!The two stars I give it are for the bloody gunshots and projectiles. They deserve a better script!

Bus full of people traveling across the western US is set up by a band of motorcycle riding outlaws, one of whom wears a cape. They find refuge in a junk yard and must band together to stay alive. Junk Yard Wars and MacGuyver meet the Seven Samurai. Well made action film never fully comes together. I found the side bits with Fred Ward as a military cop chasing AWOL soldiers better than the main thrust of people being attacked by the gang. I think they work better because they don't feel like a bumped up TV movie, having an edge that the rest of the film really doesn't have. I saw this as the last part of an action triple feature and while it probably is the best of the bunch on a technical level, its also the least interesting story wise with most of what happens just sort of laying there. Actually what it is is coldly efficient, so much so that you really don't feel much except when it doesn't seem like it was machine made. Worth a look for action fans, but I'd wait for cable.

When this movie starts it looks like a normal TV movie where something dramatic will happen. Where the characters will have to work together in order to overcome the issue at hand. While the cover suggest that the lead character is male (Desmond Harrington from "Dexter") this is not true. The lead is Julia Mond who plays a deserted soldier from whatever reason. And she is the one who organizes the diverse characters and make a stand against the Nomads (who apparently can't speak). Once the terror of the Nomads begins you have to prepare yourself for one unrealistic event after another. Otherwise you will have a very hard time in enjoying this movie. I mentioned that this started out as a normal TV movie. Nothing is further from the truth. This is one violent movie. It's bloody and gory. And because you don't expect these normal characters to commit these actions it can be shocking (Compared to Mad Max 2 Exit Speed is much more cruel and that is saying something). Overall this movie is pretty decent. I only wished that Fred Ward had a much bigger role then he got. Also I would have liked to see a more realistic approach in the Siege the bus passengers are put in.