The Wild Rebels

I saw this film as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, because chances are if I had never seen it on that show, I never would have watched it. This film is just one of a whole lot of biker films from this era and the only thing that sets it apart from others is that it was riffed by the gang on the satellite of love and that these bikers are not shown riding their motorcycles all that often. Other than those things, this movie is just another low budget biker film with an unappealing cast and a very bad 'hero'. The film at least has a bit of a plot going on and if I want to be kind, it almost has the same plot as Point Break in that it features a gang that is out robbing and they keep getting away with it so someone has to infiltrate their gang; however, I am probably being way too kind to this film. Though it is not quite as bad as other films riffed by the Mystery Science Theater 3000 gang, it is still overall kind of stinky.

The story has a race car driver who has an accident at the start of the film. This accident cost him his life savings so he decides to just give it up. He ends up at a bar where he meets a biker gang that has a proposition for him. They want him to essentially drive a get away car during their heists as the cops are getting closer to capturing them. They figure they start using a car rather than their bikes, they may not be fingered quite so fast. The race car driver does not want to do it, but he ends up joining them as he is recruited by the police to infiltrate the gang so that he can give the police updates on their plans.

This was a pretty good episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I prefer when they do horror or science fiction, but this one worked because it was rather fast paced and had lots of riffing material for the gang. The film was a bit more violent than a lot of the fare that they have riffed as the shoot out at the end gets pretty bad. I am surprised they showed so much considering in later episodes they seemed to shy away from showing anything too graphic. The episode featuring the film Squirm comes to mind as that one cut out nearly every bloody scene and decent worm kill except the old man at the farm.

So the film is nothing special, but nor is it completely horrid. Just a lot horrid I guess you can say. I doubt there are too many people who have seen the straight film with out MST3K, but probably more so than a film like Skydivers. The film was full of kicks though and it at least moved by at a brisk pace so it had that going for it. Because in retrospect it did not have that many kicks to it.

Legendary pop star Steve Alaimo ("Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying") stars as an unlikable stock car racer whose career has hit the skids (ha ha) because he constantly crashes his car (or as he laments, "I'm tired of being run down by every grease monkey that gets behind the wheel"). He falls into a bad crowd of humorously inept Nazi bikers, improbably named Jeeter, Banjo, Fats, and, er, Linda. Fats is the most likable of the bunch; he took a surfboard to the back of the skull and now only communicates through grunts, sort of a Harley Davidson Leatherface.

Anyway, Steve is fooled by the cops into catching the dastardly crooks in the middle of one of their bank robberies. The gang only robs banks for "kicks, man". I guess they give the money to charity. Steve fails constantly, the bikers get greasier, and the whole thing never comes off as daring because it's so dull. This movie looks like it was filmed through a grease-soaked paper towel. Not since "Necromantic" has a movie so trampled my soul.

The guy who played Fats went on to direct "Deranged", the Ed Gein biopic starring Robert Blossom.

Anyway, in summary: Wild Rebels: Hilarious on MST3K, dreadful everywhere else.

This is basically your run of the mill violent biker flick complete with nifty slangs, crashes, and music. OK, so just slangs and crashes. It's a slight notch above much of the other fare featured on MST3K but it's still the equivalent of driving a nail into your kneecap: slow and painful. To give away plot would exhaust my energy so I'll just say you're better off skipping this one.

Wild Rebels is fun in a bad way, but also frustrating due to the actual good, or at least workable, elements in the story. It deals with a race car driver (Steve Alaimo) who gets mixed up in a group of bikers called Satan's Angels, who hang around a lot until they decide to rob a bank. Meanwhile Alaimo also gets recruited by the cops to report back to them what the Angels are up to and where they'll rob next. It's not even that the film is really too 'dated', though it does of course carry the significantly crude and stupid music in the film (from the band on stage in one scene, to Alaimo "performing" if you could call that drek that, to the regular generic score).

It's just that there's not more care taken by the filmmaker into putting a little more logic, direction, and better actors for the parts. As it is I didn't have a major disliking towards the film, as I did with the Hellcats, but it almost left me a little indifferent to it all, too. What could come through as being unpredictable only comes through with stupid things like the name of the Florida town ('Citrusville' ho-ho). So it's not completely un-worthy then of its Mystery Science Theater 3000 status as of late. The commentary is good on the movie, even if once or twice I almost wanted to hear what the characters on screen were saying in case it might have some worth. Wild Rebels might be more of a good time if you've got a six-pack and low expectations, but as it is I wouldn't watch it again.

A youthful race car driver named Rod Tillman (Steve Alaimo) unconvincingly gives up racing and, after a chance encounter with a biker group, joins the group, composed of three idiot dudes and their shared girlfriend. Trouble is, the bikers like to rob businesses for "kicks", which invites inept cops. The result is a not very believable story with contrived action and some hokey performances.

Steve Alaimo isn't too bad as an actor. But the actors who play the bikers are simply awful. The characters they play have been described as the three stooges, and I tend to agree; they act retarded. Which renders the Tillman character's decision to join them not credible. Further, the film contains multiple plot holes, mostly involving the cops. The entire story seems fake. It's as if the writers spent all of ten minutes putting the script together, and without bothering to edit it.

Dialogue is hopelessly dated and consists of beatnik blather. "Do you dig this?" "What now daddy?" And "bread" translates to "money". Some of the action is laughable, like when one of the bikers, to escape the cops, runs out of a lighthouse toward the cops, hops on a police motorcycle and rides away. The cops don't fire on him as he approaches them; they let him ride away and then they shoot.

Color cinematography is adequate if unremarkable. Day-for-night camera filters are really obvious. Outdoor scenes appear to have been shot in real locations, which adds a sense of realism. Steve Alaimo sings a couple of songs, which has the effect of interrupting the plot flow and suggesting that the script was written with no purpose other than to promote his singing career.

"Wild Rebels" is not as bad as its reputation. But it really doesn't seem to have any point, and the story and acting are generally hokey. It's one of those cheap, meaningless drive-in films wherein the main draw is an excuse to eat buttery popcorn.