Cover Piolo Pascual as Barry and Kyle Echarri as Leo in ‘The Ride’ (Photo: Cornerstone Studios)
Piolo Pascual as Barry and Kyle Echarri as Leo in ‘The Ride’ (Photo: Cornerstone Studios)
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Thop Nazareno’s action-drama film ‘The Ride’, starring Piolo Pascual and Kyle Echarri, explores fatherhood and violence (Warning—spoilers ahead)
In Thop Nazareno’s The Ride, father and son take a trip that spirals into a reckoning. Barry (Piolo Pascual) wants to bring his teenage son Leo (Kyle Echarri) to see his ailing mother, but what begins as a desperate ride home turns into something bloodier. The route is punctured by shoot-outs, betrayals and revelations that force Leo to confront who his father truly is.
The premise is simple, but the metaphor runs deep. In Philippine cinema, the road has long been more than just asphalt and traffic, it is an escape. Perhaps a passage. Sometimes a trap. Nazareno, who co-wrote the screenplay with John Bedia and Dodo Dayao, takes this familiar image and drives it to its most brutal end.
On the surface, The Ride is an action drama. Markets erupt in gunfire, bodies fall and momentum rarely slows down. But the most devastating blow comes from Barry’s own words: “Ito bang ipapamana ko? Ganitong klaseng kaharasan? [Is this what I’ll pass down? This kind of violence?]”
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Above Piolo Pascual in ‘The Ride’ (Photo: Cornerstone Studios)
Piolo Pascual in ‘The Ride’ (Photo: Cornerstone Studios)
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Barry is a man who knows he is beyond redemption. He admits to being a failed husband and father, but pleads with Leo to live differently, to study, to escape. The film draws on the familiar “Evil Parents Want Good Kids” trope but pares it down into something more intimate. Nazareno grounds the story in realism, balancing grit with tenderness: in the mirrored gestures between father and son, or in a rare moment of sharing a drink.
Above Piolo Pascual in ‘The Ride’ (Photo: Cornerstone Studios)
Piolo Pascual in ‘The Ride’ (Photo: Cornerstone Studios)
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What makes the story sting is how it understands the weight of inheritance. Research shows that aggression is sometimes passed down through families, shaped not just by trauma but sometimes by blood. The Ride never cites this, but it feels etched into its bones. From Leo’s first appearance, we sense that the father’s sins are already written into the son.
Performances anchor the film. Pascual, long celebrated for romantic leads, inhabits Barry wonderfully. He does not reach for redemption but confesses his ruin, delivering lines like prayers no one answers. Echarri, better known as a singer, is the film’s revelation. His Leo shifts from resentment to recognition. His transformation is as raw as it is believable.
Above Thop Nazareno and Piolo Pascual at the advance screening of ‘The Ride’ (Photo: Cornerstone Studios)
Thop Nazareno and Piolo Pascual at the advance screening of ‘The Ride’ (Photo: Cornerstone Studios)
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At the advance screening, Pascual admitted the film left him with “mixed emotions” and, above all, questions of responsibility: “What lesson will people take from this, what message will they bring home?” It is an apt reflection. For all its gunfights, The Ride resists neat catharsis. It closes with Leo on the phone with his mother, left to carry the weight of choices not his own.
Audiences hyping the film online as an action flick will get their action scenes. But they will also find a story that is closer to drama and tragedy, one that refuses to resolve whether violence is destiny or choice. By the time the credits roll, the film has taken you through its bloodied road only to leave you with one question: what kind of man will Leo become now?
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Above ‘The Ride’ official poster (Photo: Cornerstone Studios)
‘The Ride’ official poster (Photo: Cornerstone Studios)
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Produced by Spring Films, Cornerstone Studios and MQuest Ventures, The Ride is as much about survival as it is about the cost of surviving. The journey begins as an escape but ends as a mirror, forcing us to ask whether the cycle can ever truly be broken or if the road always leads back to ruin.
The Ride is showing in SM cinemas nationwide starting September 24, 2025.
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Angela Nicole Regis Guiral is a digital editor at Tatler Philippines. She studied journalism and has since written features that look closely at how culture, lifestyle and social impact converge, while occasionally wandering into the worlds of style and travel.
