There's a wonderful moment in the new biker movie '' Torque " in which the hero tells his lady, ''I live my life a quarter-mile at a time.'' When he was done, the action junkies sitting around me groaned. Then the hero's lady looks at him, squints, and says, ''That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.'' The theater erupted in appreciative applause: We, too! '' Torque " invites you not simply to identify with its low IQ but to cheer it on. This is a movie that knows you know it's dumb, and that's enough to make the whole thing worth tolerating. The hero is a hunk named Ford ( Martin Henderson ), and he's just back from Thailand, where he's been hiding for the past six months from the racist, redneck kingpin ( Matt Schulze ), the one with the mullet, the gang of goons, and the pierced and predatory girlfriend ( Jaime Pressly ) called China. His name, unbelievably enough, is Henry James -- although Schulze calls to mind only the slightly less literary Henry Rollins. Ford has returned to Los Angeles for the sun, the leathers, the fake tattoos, and Shane ( Monet Mazur ), the bitter girl he abandoned. His life picks up where it left off: avoiding Henry James, who wants Ford to return the million-plus dollars in crystal meth stashed inside a fleet of very sexy motorcycles. Ford refuses. In another development Henry James gets another biker brushoff from the snarling Trey (Ice Cube), the leader of the all-black, all-underwritten Reapers. Trey won't sling crank for Henry James, even though Trey's hotheaded brother Junior ( Fredro Starr ) said the deal was a go. Peeved but clever, the redneck kills the hothead and pins it on the hunk, in the hope that the hunk will crack and give him back his crank. Both Trey and the feds take the bait and chase Ford, who just wants to move his girl and his two-man crew to Mexico. But under that old Ramones T-shirt beats the heart of a man who knows there are fight scenes and chase sequences that need stunt-doubling. Written by Matt Johnson and directed by the music video-smith Joseph Kahn, ''Torque'' is a little bit Shakespeare (brimming with characters, loyalties, and betrayals), a little bit spaghetti Western, and a little bit PlayStation. Yet the story's quality is surprising, like discovering that a quart of sour milk is still drinkable. Some of the folks responsible for '' Torque '' are the Jerry Bruckheimer acolytes who also damaged our hearing with ''The Fast and the Furious,'' ''XXX,'' and ''SWAT.'' You can see a brand germinating: multi-racial people looking tough and urban while moving very, very fast through abject plotlessness. Those movies were a lot more egalitarian. In fact, they were colorblind. In ''Torque,'' there are lots of colors, and everyone wastes a lot of time pointing out what they are. Despite that, Kahn demonstrates a kitschy visual sense of humor those movies lack. He serves up several nicely orchestrated sequences that hold your interest and jog your pulse even as they redefine ''impossible.'' Try the federal agent who survives self-immolation; the bike chase atop and through a speeding train; the last sequence, which is so fake-looking it could only have leapt off somebody's hard drive. Then there's the babe-on-babe bike brawl. In one corner, Shane sits in front of a giant Pepsi logo. In the other, China is backed by a shiny sign that says ''Mountain Dew.'' When the lasses go at it -- which, in grand Maxim fashion, they do -- you want to interrupt them and cry, ''Ladies, please. They're owned by the same company!'' But it's too late. We're already strung out on this sugar schlock.

By Wesley Morris Globe Staff
Boston Globe

Published: 01/16/2003