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The title refers to a rapacious motorcycle gang introduced thundering down the California freeway, before that the camera scans the horizon with sky and desert divided like a Rothko canvas, into the frame steps a screaming brave with knife in hand. Watching the tussle from the sidelines is Robert Walker Jr. in shades, not a particularly convincing Native American but a fair Peter Fonda stand-in. "Hey, Tonto, where'd you get those blue eyes?" The reservation is a sandy shantytown gripped by a fat-cat businessman (Mel Berger), the bikers help themselves to local women and booze but prove to be something of liberators, after a fashion. Their leader (Adam Roarke) is a bit of a scruffy poet, he protects a lass at the saloon (Joanna Frank) because he needs a waitress and encourages a little boy to filch gumballs at the general store. "You're a regular Robin Hood, aren't you?" "Not really." Of course Richard Rush's Western would be a kinetic swirl of countercultural abrasion, of joints and peace pipes and leather jackets and warpaint. Rumbles are the divertissement of choice, one incorporates massive antlers as an improvised weapon and another has Chuck Bail as a minion with a mighty karate chop who gets dumped into a barrel of flour. Perennial tropes, modern codes. "My brother wants to barf on a broad, he can barf on a broad. You want to barf on her?" "Nah, man, but thanks anyway." The climax is staged with bodies and machines jumping across makeshift barricades, Chekhov's spear makes a point at the end. "Well, those bastards wanted to play cowboys and Indians..." Laughlin in Billy Jack returns the compliment paid to The Born Losers. With John Garwood, Larry Bishop, Max Julien, Richard Anders, Duane Eddy, Billy "Green" Bush, Gary Kent, and Penny Marshall.
--- Fernando F. Croce |