With ‘Fast X’ on the horizon, let’s take a moment to remember the blatant ripoff that somehow isn’t a parody

There aren’t many things the movie industry loves more than jumping on a bandwagon and trying to run it into the ground as quickly as possible, so it was nigh-on inevitable the success of the Fast & Furious franchise would eventually lead to at least a couple of thinly-veiled imitators.

While the long-running action saga has been subjected to a direct – and egregiously awful – parody before in the form of the atrocious Superfast!, Joseph Khan’s Torque was made as a 100 percent serious and straight-faced action movie. Watching it back almost 20 years on, it’s incredible to believe that there wasn’t even an attempt to plant even the merest hint of a tongue in cheek.

Martin Henderson’s biker stumbles upon an illicit drug-running operation that he deigns to put a stop to, but Fast & Furious original (incredibly meta stuff, people) Matt Schulze’s villain has other ideas. He’s framed for murder, teams up with the brother of the man he’s accused of killing, and then ends up with both the authorities and vehicular-obsessed gangs on his tale.

Torque may have released after the equally-laughable Biker Boyz, and they both fared miserably on all fronts to make it abundantly clear that blatantly ripping off The Fast Saga wasn’t a worthwhile exercise. Thanks to Vin Diesel and the gang’s increasingly loose grip on reality and the laws of physics, Fast & Furious has carved out a niche for itself that no other series could even try and replicate.

Torque gave it the old college try, though, and ended up bombing at the box office and being savaged by reviewers and paying customers alike for its troubles.