“We’re talking a street sweeper and a doggie bag here.”

Justin’s rating: Canada, what got into you this week?

Justin’s review: The problem with revenge flicks is that you’ve got to sit through some form of brutality or injustice before you get to the “good stuff.” Maybe I’m a little emotionally sensitive to anything cringe in films, but man I hate to see nice people go through hell so that we can get all worked up over them.

Then again, that’s the whole point of revenge exploitation flicks, I suppose. Here we are introduced to perhaps the nicest trucker family in all of Canada, only to see them all brutally murdered by the evilest family in all of Canada, the Doyles (led by patriarch Ned Beatty). To add a lot of insult to injury, they sexually assault the one surviving son’s girlfriend.

So what’s trucker Joey (Don Michael Paul, Robot Wars) to do to get us out of our funk and exact some measure of justice before the end credits? Why, build a giant, indestructible monster truck that can be used to take out the Doyle clan one at a time in the most over-the-top fashion possible.

The truck is what we show up to see, not the human factor. It’s all about a Bigfoot crushing and crunching humans and vehicles alike as if this was the most demented demolition derby this side of the 49th parallel. Joey’s metal Frankenstein even includes a giant drill because… why wouldn’t you have a car-shredding drill on a revenge 4×4?

Probably the most depth here is that the local sheriffs know who’s exacting vengeance but are deliberately turning a blind eye because the end of the Doyles is a net positive for the town. Still, it’s wrong, and so they struggle with that silence — and the thought if the killer might end up taking out innocents along the way.

The problem is that Rolling Vengeance spends way too much time setting up the reason for the truck carnage — 41 minutes of it — before we finally get a truck assembly montage and the expected rampage. That’s too long to sit through what’s essentially a drunk driving Lifetime movie.

The truck is cool, granted, spitting fire and menace into the night, and it’s hard not to cheer Joey as he pursues his new hobby of vehicular homicide. And because the audience is so primed to hate Beatty and his despicable sons, there’s nary a tear shed for when a half-ton tire comes crashing down on their heads — in slow-mo, of course.

With some better directing and perhaps a lead character who does more than look blandly pretty, Rolling Vengeance could’ve been something worth recommending. It unfortunately asks you to wade through too much crud to get to the headlining attraction, and the acting and directing doesn’t bridge that gap with any skill.

Still, the monster truck stunts are cool in isolation. I kept thinking that it had a Batmobile feel to it, especially the 2022 Matt Reeves version. It’s an unthinking, uncaring, unstoppable machine out for blood, and it will not be quenched by light apologies.

Is this Tombstone for the ’80s generation? A tale of violent order against violent crime? Or is it just one guy sitting in a writer’s room somewhere playing with his toy truck and going, “Ooh, I just got an idea…”

Intermission!

• “Eat my shorts!”
• “They’re not drunk, they’re intoxicated with joy!”
• Little girls asking about growing boobs like Dolly Parton is every bit as awkward as you might imagine
• Beer football looks kind of fun
• Yeah just turn on every music box at once, that’ll settle your jangled nerves
• Cinderblocks off a bridge onto trucks doesn’t seem that safe
• Nope, not that safe AT ALL
• Joey wears the skimpiest suspenders
• Random periscope
• Running over an entire used car lot is amazing stuff
• The 8-track might still be good! Look for every silver lining there, boys.
• Finally, the drill is put to good use by chewing through a van
• Ned Beatty throwing mashed potatoes should’ve won some kind of Oscar
• I don’t think that God is taking your prayers
• There goes the worst strip club/used car lot in Canada
• Well that was wrapped up nice and neat
• Director Steven Hilliard Stern covered a whole lot of territory in his career from the ’70s through the 2000s, including such oddities as Mazes and Monsters, Murder in Space, and Not Quite Human