Motorheads TV Review: Car racing and teen drama collide in the Ryan Phillippe-led coming-of-age series

Plot: Motorheads is about first love, first heartbreak, and turning the key in your first car. Set in a once-thriving rust-belt town that’s now searching for a glimmer of hope, the series is an adrenaline-filled story of a group of outsiders who form an unlikely friendship over a mutual love of street racing, while navigating the hierarchy and rules of high school.

Review: I am not a car guy, but I am a sucker for movies and series that feature racing. I am also a sucker for kids banding together and forging a team to push back against bullies and bad guys. Whether it be The Goonies, It, or even the Harry Potter films, when a series or film can deliver a teen-centric drama without pandering to the soapier tendencies of young adult fare, it can make for a very entertaining watch. So many shows pander to the audience and treat the underage protagonists as dumb kids, but the new series Motorheads offers a refreshing change of pace. While most of the cast are in high school, the series provides a realistic portrait of a part of America not often shown in big-budget programming. With a combination of car racing, criminal factions, and a mystery underlining the entire season, Motorheads is better than you would think and can be a breakout hit for Prime Video.

Motorheads follows Zac (Michael Cimino) and his sister Caitlyn (Melissa Collazo) as they move back to their dad’s hometown in rural Pennsylvania along with their mom, Samantha (Nathalie Kelley). Living with their uncle, Logan Maddox (Ryan Phillippe), a former NASCAR mechanic who runs a fledgling auto shop, Caitlyn and Zac try to keep their connection to the Maddox family secret. Years prior, their father, Christian Maddox, was embroiled in a notorious crime that also marked his disappearance. Looking to try and reset, the teens run up against a crew of rich kids led by Harris (Josh McQueen) who race their souped-up sports cars and judge the poorer people in town. Zac kindles interest with Harris’ girlfriend, Alicia (Mia Healey), which pits the two teens opposite each other. When challenged to a race, Zac and his sister team up with local outcast Curtis (Uriah Shelton), who builds motorcycles, and aspiring artist and designer Marcel (Nicolas Cantu). They stand a chance of competing with Harris as a team, but they have to learn to work together.

As a straightforward plot, the core narrative of Motorheads works pretty well. But if that were the only driving element of the story, it would easily fall prey to feeling redundant and derivative of countless similar series and films. To complicate matters further, the dying town suffers economically, forcing many locals to turn to crime. Logan has dealt with a local gang of criminals who strip cars for parts. Led by Ray (Drake Rodger), the crew of thieves pulls off daring crimes in and around town, drawing attention from the local sheriff. It also does not help that Ray is Curtis’ older brother, adding complexity to the interconnected relationships across the ensemble cast. Curtis also has feelings for the tomboyish Caitlyn, which is also complicated in its own right. The romantic elements of the plot are the most YA part of the series, which also incorporates the mystery of what happened to Christian Maddox. This event overshadows everything in this ten-episode first season.

What elevates the story of Motorheads over countless other teen dramas is the way the characters are built as three-dimensional characters. Harris could have been dismissed as a Johnny Lawrence stereotype, and Ray could have been the greaser antagonist, but the characters’ motivations are all rendered authentically and nuanced. This is not a series about racism or sexism or anything other than locals versus outsiders, wealthy versus poor, all in service of social status and legacy. It also works as an underdog story as the teen crew assembles a cool car. The adults are also realized as full characters rather than authority figures or tropes to add roadblocks for the younger characters. Ryan Phillippe is great here as he is a mentor figure over the younger characters; he likely would have played thirty years ago. Philippe’s maturity is balanced by the excellent race sequences that elevate this from melodrama to action-drama.

Created by John A. Norris, Motorheads takes the strongest elements from YA series and enhances them with a layered ensemble of realistic characters. Norris has experience in the genre, having been a writer or executive producer on One Tree Hill, Beauty and the Beast, Bull, Deception, and All American. Norris wrote six of the ten episodes of this season, with the others penned by Adrian Dukes, Kenny Neibart, Carrie Gutenberg & Obiageli Odimegwu, and Wendy Straker Hauser. Directing duties fell to Rebecca Rodriguez, Tara Nicole Weyr, Glen Winter, and Ryan Zaragoza, with Neil Burger setting the tone and scope as director on the first two episodes. Burger’s resume includes The Illusionist, Limitless, Divergent, Voyagers, and Inheritance, all with solid action credibility and dramatic tension. Motorheads does not look or feel like a series but rather a feature film caliber production, including some of the best racing I have seen on the small screen.

With all ten episodes dropping simultaneously, Motorheads is a solid summer binge watch with intriguing characters, excellent action sequences, and enough subplots to keep you entertained and theorizing before a potential second season. If you aren’t a fan of relationship drama or car racing, you may not get as much out of this series as I did, but it exceeded my expectations as a fun watch. I would have liked less of the school stuff and more about the Maddox family and their illegal activities, but this is a pretty good start for a series not based on existing IP. As counter-programming to everything else on the airwaves, Motorheads is a decent replacement that a wider audience can enjoy

Motorheads

GOOD

7

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