‘The Ride’ REVIEW: A trip that goes nowhere
‘The Ride’ REVIEW: A trip that goes nowhere
Barry (Piolo Pascual) and Leo (Kyle Echarri) | Still courtesy of Cornerstone Entertainment
At just 64 minutes, Thop Nazareno’s crime drama The Ride keeps things lean. It follows Barry (Piolo Pascual), a member of a carnapping gang determined to give his son, Leo (Kyle Echarri), a life outside crime. But what begins as a trip to visit Barry’s terminally ill ex-wife quickly spirals into a fight for survival when father and son are drawn into a turf war between syndicates.
It is a simple film, maybe too simple, stripped down to the point of thinness. At its core, it wants to be a drama between father and son, two men at different ends of their anger, learning to meet halfway. Yet the film never gives their relationship room to breathe. Pascual and Echarri play with conviction, but there is no lived-in history between them in the performances, only a flat plateau of emotions. One scene tries to spark some rapport, but against the backdrop of nonstop chase sequences, it feels more like an interruption than an anchor.
Outside the father-son story, the plotting suffers from the same hollowness. The film rushes forward without grounding its twists in logic or motivation. Barry talks up a coup d’état he himself orchestrated to switch sides between crime families, but inexplicably chooses to set it in motion on the same day he brings his son to visit his dying ex-wife. It does not just lack sense; it is downright stupid, and it contradicts his supposed desire to keep his kin out of crime and set things right with him.
Barry in The Ride | Still courtesy of Cornerstone Entertainment
The supporting cast does not fare better. Characters drift in and out without weight, leaving only the faint suggestion that they matter. Bossing, played by Joey Marquez, is framed as a psychopathic antagonist, yet aside from a fleeting torture scene with a power drill, he never makes an impression or gives the film any menace, leaving the cat-and-mouse chase completely devoid of tension. Alex Medina’s character, meant to be central as the betrayer of Barry’s coup, barely registers at all, so much so that I cannot even recall his name. When the inevitable confrontation between the two arrives, he calls Barry “kuya”, hinting at a history between them. But with no texture laid beforehand, the moment collapses into emptiness, just another ingredient in what is ultimately a thin, flavorless broth of a crime drama.
Leo in The Ride | Still courtesy of Cornerstone Entertainment
Throughout the film, Barry’s narration keeps insisting this is his final chance to set things right with his son, but you never feel that urgency. The world does not have its claws on him, nor does the story trap him in a corner he cannot escape. Instead, it moves briskly from one set-piece to another, rushing through without mood or atmosphere to hold it down.
That is the real tragedy here, not the fate of Barry or his son, but the wasted chance at a crime drama that could have simmered with tension, melancholy, and heart. At just over an hour, The Ride has the speed of a getaway car, but none of the gravity to make the journey matter.
