A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

In Venice, California, the leader of Hell's Angels Heavenly Blues tells his friend Joe "Loser" Kearns (Bruce Dern) that he had located his stolen motorcycle in Mecca. While trying to retrieve the bike, Loser is shot on the back by a police patrol end goes to the hospital.This film's pedigree is amazing: Dern, Peter Fonda, Diane Ladd, Nancy Sinatra, Roger Corman, Arkoff-Nicholson, Peter Bogdanovich... even if it was a terrible film, it would be a must-see for all those interested in film history.An, of course, it is darn entertaining. I would love to see a special edition of this with commentary and the whole nine yards. Maybe one exists, but not the one I saw.

Roger Corman's "The Wild Angels" was released in 1966 and kicked off the biker film craze that ran for less than a decade, which makes it the perfect introduction to the genre, not to mention it's the best of the lot I've seen. THE PLOT: Heavenly Blues (Fonda) and The Loser (Bruce Dern) are members of The Angel's bike gang (modeled after the Hell's Angels). The first half hour shows them and their "old ladies" (Nancy Sinatra & Diane Ladd) living the wild & crazy lifestyle of a biker gang in Southern California. Due to the folly of the gang members, The Loser perishes. The final hour involves his death and subsequent funeral & burial in some small town in the mountains. The gang members can't handle their grief and seek solace through excessive revelry, drugs & alcohol, criminal acts and depressed withdrawal.The first half hour is quite entertaining and precisely what you'd expect from a 60's biker flick. The Southern California locations and cinematography are incredible and the story is compelling. The film was shot in Mecca, Idyllwild and Palm Desert. While there's some good biker action in this initial segment, the final 55 minutes takes a slow, dark, solemn and completely shocking turn that will turn some viewers off. This final hour shows that "The Wild Angels" is not an action film at all; it's a biker drama that touches on some heavy issues -- friendship, death and grief, as well as alcohol, drug and sexual abuse."The Wild Angels" was filmed only 12 years after Brando's lame biker flick "The Wild One." So how much more "wild" could Fonda's gang be? Well, if you're seeing it for the first time, you're in for a surprise because The Angels are WAY beyond merely wild & free (as they're depicted in the first 30 minutes), they're totally wicked imbeciles!Want proof? The Angels break into the hospital to "free" The Loser and he ends up dying for lack of proper medical care for his critical injuries (sustained while trying to flee the police). They make sure to get him high before he dies though. While breaking into the hospital one Angel savagely attempts to rape a nurse. And guess what kind of thanks The Angels give to the minister who kindly performs The Loser's funeral? They beat him up and totally trash his sanctuary (!). Guess what kind of comfort two Angel's offer The Loser's grieving girlfriend? They cruelly rape her (!). To top it off they outrageously abuse The Loser's corpse at the funeral party (!!).As you can see, The Angel's aren't just anti-heroes in this film, they're THE SCUM OF THE EARTH. Not only that, but they're a bunch of LOSERS who, as Fonda points out, just "want to get loaded" (in his almost laughable rant). Hey, everyone needs to let their hair down and celebrate now and then (God even seems to advise it in the Bible -- Deuteronomy 14:26), but if the sole purpose of your life is to just "get loaded" you're not gonna look very good when you hit 35 (the Angels in the film are all in their mid-late 20s), and you're certainly not going to have any energy, drive or charisma. Yeah, the "party animal" lifestyle gets old real quick, and then ya gotta grow up (everybody grows older but not everyone grows up).Despite what some say, Nancy Sinatra does a fine job as Fonda's girlfriend; she would later renounce the film, however, due to it's over-the-top immorality.FINAL ANALYSIS: The first time I saw "The Wild Angels" I was completely taken aback by the shocking immorality of The Angels; I simply wasn't prepared to see this in a 1966 picture. I also felt the film really bogged down with The Loser's death, funeral and burial (the last 55 minutes).I now consent to the film's uniqueness and brilliance. This is a cult flick in the truest sense. Yes, some of The Angel's behavior is incredibly reprehensible and, yes, the preacher in the story was right when he stated, "Woe to those who say evil is good and good is evil." Still, the picture successfully captures the utterly outcast and outlaw nature of The Angel's bike gang. They're like a small, totally lost tribe living on the periphery of American society. In a way, one can't help but pity the poor bastages.Also, I now acknowledge the genius of the final 55 minutes of the film, which involve The Loser's death, funeral and burial. If you're psyched up to see an action film you're going to be disappointed because "The Wild Angels" boldly sneers at such film conventions. The story is essentially about death and the nature of bereavement. It powerfully shows how the various gang members deal with their grief: They generally deny it and attempt to lose themselves in drinking, drugs, revelry and criminal & perverse conduct. The leader (Fonda) can't shake his mournful spirit of loss; he's not even sure if he loves his "old lady" anymore. When everyone else scatters because "the heat" arrives, he stays -- risking impending capture -- to bury his fallen comrade. One gets the impression he's digging his own grave because, as he told his girlfriend, he's got "no where to go."The original title of "The Wild Angels" was much better and more fitting: "All the Fallen Angels." In conclusion, despite being a B-grade flick, "The Wild Angels" is shocking, bold, unique and well worthy of its notorious reputation. In fact, it was banned in Denmark, one of the world's most 'liberated' countries, when it was released. What thrusts it into the realm of greatness is its heavy commentary on the human condition in a world gone mad, which may be completely missed by some viewers who won't likely see beyond the shocking aspects or Fonda's eye-rolling rant in the church.

Hard to believe that this film went up against The Battle of Algiers at the Venice Film Festival in 1966. Roger Corman is responsible for starting the biker flicks phenomenon with this film.Peter Fonda is the essence of coo as he performs a role that he made even more popular in Easy Riders three years later.He is accompanied by Nancy Sinatra as Monkey, Michael J. Pollard as Pigmy, and Bruce Dern as Loser; along with three time Oscar nominee, and Golden Globe and BAFTA winner, Diane Ladd in her first credited movie role.Radical scene in the church where Fonda debated the preacher (played by Frank Maxwell, Det. Lt. McAllen in one of my favorite films, Mr. Majestyk).Exciting action, but missing the gratuitous bits featured in other biker films. PG at best.

"The Wild Angels" provides further evidence that producer/director Roger Corman wasn't just a clever businessman, but primarily a genuine pioneer of cult-cinema. When people are listing the greatest & coolest biker flicks from the late 60's and early 70's, they're always talking about "Easy Rider", the Aussie classic "Stone", "Cycle Savages" and perhaps a handful of others. "The Wild Angels" rarely ever gets mentioned but it actually predates all these films, so one could really claim this obscure puppy was the prototype of biker-exploitation. In the fifties already, there was the biker classic "The Wild One", with Marlon Brando, but this is the film that almost single-handedly launched the popular trend of exploitation movies in which heavy thugs in leather outfits are cruising across the American countryside and getting in all sort of trouble. Corman's film features pretty much all the essential aspects that determine a biker movie. Nihilistic and crude male characters on their bikes, docile women following them around no matter what, gang conflicts, confrontations with the police, a ritual funeral parade and a whole lot of wild parties with booze, drugs and rape. Peter Fonda depicts, for the first time of many, the ruthless gang leader of a biker gang called The Angels. They wear Nazi symbols and fill their days with smoking weed and complaining how "The Man" doesn't allow them to live freely. When they head out to the Mexican border to recover a stolen motorcycle from a rival gang, Blues' sidekick Loser gets killed after a chase with the police. His funeral escalates into an anarchistic orgy in which the Angels demolish a church, rape their own women and provoke a fight with an entire community. "The Wild Angels" may have been very influential, but it's nevertheless understandable why it never became an authentic cult classic. As said, all the necessary plot ingredients are present, but it too often feels as if they are completely ignored. Multiple potentially compelling sub plots and intriguing character drawings are left unprocessed whereas the film does contain too many tedious and pointless sequences that shouldn't have been there. The atmosphere is effectively nihilistic, with the gang members even continuously fighting and cheating on each other, but there are too few genuinely memorable moments. The acting performances are pretty neat, with a few great names still at the beginning of their careers, like Peter Fonda, Diane Ladd, Michael J. Pollard and Bruce Dern. "The Wild Angels" isn't a classic, but nevertheless essential viewing if you like the rough-n-tough cult cinema of the late 60's.