![Disturbing the Peace Image](https://cdn-0.filmthreat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/REVIEW-Disturbing-The-Peace-1-300x149.jpg)
A motorcycle gang taking over a small town sounds like something you’d see in a drive-in theater around 1973. In that respect, you could call Disturbing the Peace a throwback. Guy Pearce plays Jim Dillon, and with a name like that, you’d better be a Texas marshal haunted by your past. When a motorcycle gang commandeers his town to hijack a vehicle filled with cash, Dillon is given a chance to reckon with his past and redeem himself.
“…a fine excuse to wreak some ultra-violent, whack-a-mole mayhem between the law and a posse of cutthroat bikers.”
It’s a thin, familiar set-up, but it’s a fine excuse to wreak some ultra-violent, whack-a-mole mayhem between the law and a posse of cutthroat bikers. To steal from the poster for The Wild Angels, their God is hate! Where the movie disappoints is that when the guns start a-blazin’ and the expletives start a-flyin,’ it’s not nearly as fun as it should be. It feels perfunctory like the movie was a homework assignment, done quickly and reluctantly. That’s no way to approach a good ol’ fashioned shoot-out.
The movie handcuffs itself with its dedication to realism. A story like this should be wild, not plausible. When the villain speaks, he sounds as boring and empty-headed as an actual criminal might. You’re begging him to chew some scenery and go off-road into some crazy monologue about the freedom of the biker lifestyle—spittle flying and forehead veins bulging—but there’s no such thing. Everyone’s playing it straight.
![Disturbing the Peace Image](https://cdn-0.filmthreat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/REVIEW-Disturbing-The-Peace-4.jpg)
"…Guy Pearce plays Jim Dillon, and with a name like that, you’d better be a Texas marshal haunted by your past."