Plot
Rommel is a mechanic at a motorbike repair shop who works alongside his partner Luke, and competes in sidehack-style races. He and his fiancée Rita plan to get married soon. Rommel meets J.C., a hot-tempered entertainer and his crew, when he brings in his bike for repair. J.C. sees a sidehack bike in the shop and takes a liking to it. Rommel invites J.C. and his group to join him in a sidehack event the upcoming weekend. At the event, J.C. enjoys watching Rommel race on the sidehack. Rommel offers J.C. to give a ride on a sidehack with him at his and Rita's cabin, and he accepts.
A day of racing on Rommel's sidehack is followed by a dinner party at the cabin. The party turns ugly when J.C. invites Rommel to join his gang, and Rommel declines. J.C. loses his temper when Dirty John (one of his henchmen) asks him a question and Nero (another henchman of J.C.’s) tries to calm his. After J.C. asks Rommel again to join his gang, J.C.'s girlfriend Paisley reminds him that Rommel isn't interested. Infuriated by her comment, J.C. reluctantly accepts Rommel's rejection and everyone awkwardly walks out of the cabin.
Angry with Paisley, J.C. tries to pressure her into answering why Rommel shouldn't join their crew. Paisley finds it humorous, and tells J.C. she finds him disappointing. When she tries to leave, J.C. roughly pulls her back. J.C. tells her to scream for help; when she does, J.C. punches her in the stomach, and tells her she is his and no one else's.
The next day, while Rommel and Luke are working on a bike, Paisley comes over and tries to seduce Rommel, wanting to get away from J.C., but he rejects her. When J.C. and his men return to their hotel, they find a drunk and disheveled Paisley, who claims that Rommel raped her. Angered, J.C. and his gang find Rommel and Rita in their cabin making love. The gang beat Rommel unconscious, then rape Rita, killing her in the process. Luke finds Rommel and Rita and calls the police. J.C., now a wanted man, is forced into hiding.
Despite Luke's warnings to let the police handle the situation, Rommel is determined get his revenge. Rommel gathers a group of men as back up, consisting of one of J.C.'s former henchmen Nero, muscle-bound Big Jake, bailed out criminal Crapout, and another one of J.C.'s henchmen, Cooch (who is secretly working undercover for J.C.). With help from Cooch, Rommel and his gang head out into the canyons where J.C. is hiding. Despite his wife Lois’ concerns about his safety, Luke goes after Rommel to stop him. Meanwhile, Rommel discusses his plan, which involves engaging J.C. and his gang in hand to hand combat. Despite suspecting J.C.'s gang may be armed, Rommel's gang reluctantly agree to the plan.
The next morning, Cooch sneaks over to J.C.'s hideout while everyone is still asleep and fills him in on Rommel's plan. After Cooch leaves, J.C. celebrates his victory with Paisley, thinking he has Rommel figured out. Paisley breaks up with J.C. because of his abuse and her guilt for indirectly causing Rita's death. An enraged J.C. strangles Paisley to death, and then apologizes to her dead body and chides her for making him so angry.
Luke tries to talk him out of his revenge on J.C., telling Rommel he is no better than J.C. if follows through. Rommel ignores Luke's pleas. Rommel's gang sees Cooch sneaking back into camp, and they gang up on him to find out what's going on. Cooch feigns ignorance, so they beat him up to get him to talk. Finally giving in, Cooch tells Rommel J.C. is hiding in a rock quarry in the canyons. Rommel orders Crapout to tie up Cooch.
Rommel asks Luke to tell the police where J.C. is hiding, acknowledging that revenge is worthless. However, Rommel keeps a tied-up Cooch by his side while his men attack J.C. in his hideout. Big Jake is shot and killed after taking down two of J.C.'s men. Cooch escapes and runs to J.C., who kills him for his betrayal. Nero and Crapout escape on a bike as the latter shoots the rest of J.C.'s men.
Rommel and J.C. find each other in the quarry and fight. Rommel manages to gain the upper hand, and when the police arrive he decides to walk away. J.C. finds a gun dropped by one of his dead henchmen and shoots Rommel in the back. The last images of the film are a flashback of Rommel and Rita rolling about in a grassy field, superimposed over a shot of Rommel's dead body.
Mystery Science Theater 3000
On September 29, 1990, The Sidehackers was featured and lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000 . The episode (Season 2, Episode 2) includes one of the few occasions Cambot actually interacts in a way other than filming the experiment, by placing an ESPN-like score graphic during the movie's racing scenes. [1]
The episode was released on DVD by Rhino Entertainment as part of the third volume of Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD box sets. The collection also included the MST3K versions of The Atomic Brain (episode #518) and The Unearthly (episode #320) plus a disc of six MST3K shorts. The four-disc collection was later re-issued by Shout Factory in September 2016. [2]
Edits
The writers were unaware of the film's darker content when they selected it for the show, only watching it in its entirety during their usual joke-writing sessions. They were horrified to discover the scene in which Rommel's girlfriend Rita is raped and killed, juxtaposed with shots of Luke and Lois' children playfully roughhousing. This scene, and the discovery of Rita's nearly nude body, were removed from the episode. To make up for the missing plot point, the character of Crow later remarks, "For those of you playing along at home, Rita is dead." According to the series' head writer (and future host) Michael J. Nelson, "We were all traumatized, the scene got cut, and from that day forward, movies were watched in their entirety (for such potentially offensive content) before they were selected." [3] Earlier in the episode, the dinner scene at Rommel and Rita's cabin is also edited slightly: when J.C. flies into a rage and Nero tries to calm him, J.C. pushes him away, saying "Get your hands off me, you dirty nigger!" The latter half of the line is muted while Joel and the bots loudly rebuke J.C.
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