HELLS ANGELS ON WHEELS

year: 1967

cast: Adam Roarke, Jack Nicholson, Sabrina Scharf, John Bud Cardos, Jack Starrett

rating: ****

You'd expect a positive review of what seems like a cookie-cutter 60's biker film to stem from the fact that a young pre-Easy Rider Jack Nicholson delivers a terrifically subtle performance as a mellow but tough gas station worker who joins ranks with the Hell's Angels, but the real credit must be given for the star, cult actor Adam Roarke, and how natural he is on screen. His slowburn, devil-may-care attitude is just right as the leader of the Hell's Angels. While he's not big and burly, his wily-assured cockiness makes him the perfect centerpiece of a biker flick that delivers much more than you'd expect from the usually vapid genre. He and Jack have terrific chemistry: and with Sabrina Scharf in-between it's a spontaneous ride, full of the road, random parties and even some decent dialogue with overall development in-between. Too bad, in the future, Adam couldn't follow Jack into at least a quarter of his success. He deserved better... Although FROGS is a classic.

SATAN'S SADISTS

year: 1969

cast: Russ Tamblyn, Gary Kent, Richard Dix, Scott Brady, John Bud Cardos

director: Al Adamson

rating: ***

At times feeling like a snuff film on the verge of payoff, other times sublimely embodying exactly what it is: a low-low-budget drive-in odyssey pitting a gang of scruffy bikers, who call themselves SATAN'S SADISTS, against anyone in their path: headlining at an off-highway diner harboring tough guys Gary Kent and Scott Brady . The leader, played by Russ Tamblyn... looking more Phil Spector than Sonny Barger... get violent and his gang rides off and the marine and waitress go after them. For the next hour each Sadist, all uniquely odd and perfectly irritating in their own style (or lack of), gets picked off. But that's not before these ragged mutts enjoy raping unlucky female campers, smoking pot, dropping acid, and being gloriously despicable. After all, it's their movie!

MOTORCYCLE GANG

title: MOTORCYCLE GANG

year: 1994

cast: Carla Gugino, Gerald McRaney, Jake Busey, Richard Edson, Julia Mueller

rating: **

This is a bad made-for-TV film that's not so bad, at least the first half centering on a family consisting of a father, a mother, and a teenager daughter who - during the 1950s - move from Texas to California. On the way they run into the element that ruins the flow of the movie, and ironically it's the Motorcycle Gang, led by Jake Busey who resembles a flaky nineties surfer more than a fifties gang member and is about an intimidating as a housefly. This is where the movie hits a wall, and explodes. Sadly, once-great John Milius directed this.