As part of their Marquee Collection (which seems to be lower-priced releases of more modern films that don’t fit as well into the video store-era releases of the MVD Rewind Collection), MVD Visual unleashes a NOS-fueled race to the finish with the 2007 film Redline. Strap in and punch the gas!

Redline is an unabashedly B-movie setup the likes of which Roger Corman might’ve pumped out back in the ’60s and ’70s. The movie takes place in the high stakes world of illegal street racing where the likes of Tim Matheson, Eddie Griffin and Angus McFadyen pit rare exotic cars against one another to the tune of millions of dollars in bets. Nathan Phillips (I know him mainly as one of the hikers in Wolf Creek) plays Carlo, one of the racers who thirsts for revenge after his brother is killed in a race orchestrated by their father. Also starring is Nadia Bjorlin (who I honestly don’t recognize from anything else) as Natasha, a skillful driver who also happens to front a really shitty band. Seriously I was laughing through their entire performance. The lyrics alone make “Hear the Engines Roll” from Pod People look like a damn masterpiece. Anyway, I digress…

Arriving shortly after the third Fast & the Furious film, Redline obviously was trying to capitalize on the nation’s love of fast cars and wooden acting. I gotta say, Redline really goes all in on both. The acting is as wooden as they come, making Paul Walker and Vin Diesel look downright Shakespearean by comparison. Also the movie definitely delivers on the rare exotic car front featuring multiple Ferraris including an Enzo that Eddie Griffin accidentally crashed on set (oof… hopefully they had insurance amiright?), a Phantom Rolls Royce, two McLaren AMGs and a $450k Porsche Carrera GT. And some of these crazy expensive cars they straight up trashed for the sake of cinema perfection. I mean, the majority of the budget of this movie was probably spent on the cars (it definitely wasn’t on securing a quality script or paying high tier actors). The director of this MTV-addled euro-speedster wet dream is Andy Cheng who is primarily known as one of Hollywood’s biggest stunt coordinators. He actually began his career working with Jackie Chan and for a stunt co-ordinator, there was probably no better place to be. Despite this misfire of a directorial effort, Cheng has continued to do stunt work on some of the biggest movies in Hollywood like Marvel’s Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. I’m glad he’s back in stunts because his fast-cut, music video style of directing was dated the second it dropped.

The HD transfer here actually looks quite good. Redline was actually shot on film and it really does benefit from it. The lossy Dolby 5.1 surround audio track is pretty solid but honestly pack quite as much oomph as I had hoped. Extras include a couple of archival featurettes, one a 12-minute behind the scenes featurette and the other a short featurette of some of the cast promoting the film with some of the cars featured at the LA Auto Show. Neither extra is terribly essential, but it’s still nice to see them included.

Redline is not high art. In fact, in the grand scheme of things it’s really not a good movie at all. BUT… It doesn’t pretend to be either. What Redline promises are dumb people driving very fast, very expensive cars, and on that promise it delivers exact that and nothing more. As long as you go in expecting a schlocky B-picture and you crave some high-speed antics, you’ll probably be at least moderately entertained.