Les Machines du diable

William Smith is my all time favorite B-Movie actor- a truly talented individual whose list of lifelong accomplishments is extraordinary. He single handedly made movies like "The Losers" watchable and even enjoyable if you don't take them too seriously. The film centers around the U.S. Army hiring a motorcycle gang to rescue a presidential adviser being held captive in Cambodia. Smith plays gang leader Link Thomas, whose Army Sergeant brother sets up the mission. Most of the movie is spent focusing on events leading up to the mission with the gang partying, smoking, getting in fights and souping up their choppers as the rescue nears.

The acting is average, although a respectable cast (Adam Roarke, Paul Koslo & Bernie Hamilton) was assembled. There is too much time spent on love interests which tends to bog down the film, but the latter half especially is very entertaining as the mission takes place. This is 70's schlock through and through, but is a treat for William Smith fans, as he gets top billing and the lions' share of screen time.

No one will confuse this with anything Oscar worthy, but so what? A good way to numb your mind for an hour and a half.

In order to rescue a Presidential Advisor (in a Francis Ford Coppola costume) from a group of Chinese Communists in Cambodia, the government enlists a subdivision of Hell's Angels led by William Smith to break in there and get him out. The back of the box said this film has more action than 'The Dirty Dozen' and 'The Wild Bunch' combined. To call that a vast overstatement would be a vast understatement. In reality, the film is a bunch of bikers having sex, getting drunk, getting wasted, getting into lame fistfights, falling in love, waxing poetic and building stupid-looking motorcycles sandwiched between two decent action scenes with 2nd rate Enzo G. Castellari slow-motion (which would make it 4th rate Peckinpah). All in all, it's actually not bad, but the climax should have been better considering the time we have to wait in order to get to it. Have ear plugs ready when the title song comes up. It's a soft medley probably sung and written by some drugged out hippie chick that doesn't fit with the movie at all.

The biker film was a staple of American exploitation cinema in the late 1960's, culminating in the "generation defining" studio funded classic, Easy Rider (1969). What we have here is somewhat of a genre mash up, placing a bunch of Californian bikers in the midst of an "exotic" war zone. Five gang members, led by Link (William Smith), are employed by the CIA, sent into the heart of darkness in Vietnam, to rescue a captured agent, Chet Davis (played here by director Jack Starrett - who most will recognise as the vicious police officer, Galt, from First Blood (1982)).

The first hour of the film is spent with the gang as they integrate into a small village, basically brawling, f*****g, drinking and fomenting relationships with the all-too-easy ladies. It is a completely ludicrous premise; OK so perhaps this gang of low-life's were more expendable than the troops being sent out daily, but it is hard to believe. That being said, this is exploitation cinema at its most ridiculous.

The action accelerates in the last reel, as the bikers infiltrate a camp, their bikes armed to the teeth, but the action is repetitive, and with little merit: Bikes jump, huts blow up. Besides this though, some of the characters are likable enough, with their dialogue of clichéd, counter-cultural hyperbole, but it doesn't really save a pretty tedious affair - perhaps the trailer was exciting, so maybe you should just see that. Like all exploitation films of the time that were set in exotic climates, this was of course filmed in the Philippines (where filming is cheap!).

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Fun genre-splicer where biker gang is enlisted by US army to rescue a VIP American captive behind enemy lines, with all the action and phony red paint stage blood they used to use in the 70's to go with it, Some pretty lousy acting to some pretty lousy dialogue, but not all. Big plus for me was the American's interaction with the Vietnamese locals as they try to go about conducting the business of daily life in a war zone, especially the lovely ladies, many of whom dancing in bra and panties in a "nightclub" (brothel). Cheesy love theme reprised over final massacre is the perfect unhappy ending.

I like when directors try to mix genres like "Chopper Chicks In Zombie Town", "Blade Runner", "Rock'n'Roll Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy" etc. You don't always get the best results but at least it's interesting. In "The Losers/Nam's Angels" B-movie veteran William Smith leads a bikergang against the Viet Cong. Fun idea but the film spends too time with the bikers' love affairs, bar fights etc. In the end the gang gets their s**t together with their special built warbikes (no Harleys!). It's too late to save the movie but Tarantino must've been impressed since he used some scenes in "Pulp Fiction"! Nice try but see "Satan's Sadists" or "Apocalypse Now" instead.