Les sept sauvages

About the uneasy alliance between a gang of bikers and dirt poor Native Americans with the establishment, naturally, as their common foe. Directed by Richard Rush, who would go on to make the brilliant "The Stunt Man", the film delivers on all the action and stunts you'd expect from this genre while also injecting some obvious but effective social commentary. (The powers-that-be pit the bikers and Indians against each other to dissolve their strength and perpetuate their fringe status.)

The lead biker, Adam Roarke, is commanding and charismatic - he's not the meathead you'd expect from this sort of film. In fact, there is a gravity and depth to his performance that catches you off guard at first. He's a bewildering but fascinating mix of aggression and sensitivity, someone grappling with the scrambled values of the era. I liked Robert Walker Jr. too as the hot-headed, blue-eyed Indian. Often too boyish and elf-like, he's edgier and more natural here.

The movie has style to burn and stands up as an unusually well-mounted (and richly photographed) biker flick, with some brains behind the chains. Rush doesn't seem inhibited by the common-ness of the material - he builds the characters and moves his camera (it glides and whirls like a gymnast) in typically startling fashion. The whole exercise seems to center around Roarke's memorable line "If I'm going to be a bear, it might as well be a Grizzly."

Savage Seven, The (1968)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Extremely bizarre AIP flick about a group of Indians, led by Johnnie (Robert Walker, Jr.) who are tired of their poor lives where they're pushed around on their reservation by a greedy white man. Soon a gang of bikers show up and the two sides clash, especially Johnnie and Stud (Adam Rourke) and it's all going to end in a battle. This is a very bizarre movie as it seems three or four screenplays were just mixed together and AIP quickly filmed them without trying to put anything into order. There are times when you think the bikers are wanting to help the Indians but then we're back to fighting only to flip flop a couple more times. The entire movie constantly left me with a WTF look on my face as nothing ever made too much sense or really added up in the end. You've got your typical white bad guys who are stealing money from the Indians. You have the Indians wanting to fight back on what is basically your land. Then you have the bikers show up who are probably here so AIP could exploit the biker genre. The film was apparently selected by Quentin Tarantino during one of his film festivals, which is a little interesting since there are much better biker flicks out there from this era. There's really not too much violence, no profanity and no nudity so the "exploitation" market is pretty low. What the film does have are a few long fights that seems to keep going and going. That's certainly not a bad thing as the fights are pretty outrageous with bats, chains and various other objects being used. Walker isn't too bad in his role but the screenplay doesn't leave him too much to do. The same can be said for Rourke who is also impressive for what he's given. Supporting players include Billy Green Bush, John "Bud" Cardos, Larry Bishop and Joanna Frank. Most of the time these biker flicks are at least mildly entertaining but this one here left me bored for long stretch of periods and way too many times. There's some cult-ish items here but just not enough to make this worth sitting through when there are so many better films out there.

I hate you, I love you, I hate you, I love you, I stab you, I'm sorry...WOW....think 1960's TV Batman as Billy Jack, but in motorcycle gang garb, with a spacey Cher look-a-like floating dreamily around, alternately fighting and smootching the Chirakowa from F Troop, with King Tut and his henchmen pulling the puppet strings....

In the late seventies, I saw a Second City voice-over of an episode of The Cisco Kid, which was hilarious. This script is so bad, the acting so goofy, the music so jarringly inappropriate, the fight scenes so laughable....I thought I was seeing another Second City spoof. This would make an unbelievably fun evening for a Mystery Science Theatre 2000-type event. Gather your smarmiest friends, some likker and snacks...and have a blast. Perhaps one of the worst movies I have ever seen, I would GLADLY buy a copy. Monty Python couldn't have done it better. There's even a bit with a VERY young Penny Marshall getting raped by the campfire, asking "Does this make me seem cheap?" The intensely serious, psychoanalytic review provided by IMDb on the main page made me laugh even more.... just have fun.

This movie is essentially about three different groups which come into conflict with each other coupled with alliances shifting back and forth. The first group consists of Native Americans who live in extreme poverty. The second group is led by a rich but extremely controlling person named "Mr. Fillmore" (Mel Berger) who exploits the Native Americans and keeps them in line by using hired thugs whenever anyone dares to complain. The third group is a motorcycle gang known simply as "MC California" who drift into the ramshackle town with the idea of fighting, drinking beer and carousing with some of the Native American females. Needless to say, Mr. Fillmore doesn't quite like all of the chaos and destruction by the motorcycle gang. On that same note, some of the Native Americans don't like the way they are treated either. But the tactics used by Mr. Fillmore are just as bad and as it turns out he now has a secret plan which will leave the Native Americans even more destitute. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie has plenty of action but very little character development. As a result several scenes lacked the necessary setup which made the movie appear to be too spontaneous and shallow. But that's just my opinion. Be that as it may, although it does have some good qualities here and there, I was generally disappointed overall and I have rated it according. Slightly below average.

Except for one bloke, who is unfortunate enough to resemble Gerard Depardieu, this is a gang of uncommonly cute bikies. But don't let their looks fool you. They just love their violence, and they're torn between fighting the fat ugly exploitative white man and his henchmen or fighting the spunky indigenous Johnnie with his collection of trendy shirts.

Of course, they just pick fights with anyone they meet for a while, but in the end they'll have to choose.