1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Four Bit Biker Film - adjusted for inflation, September 21, 2010
This review is from: Wild Rebels [VHS] (VHS Tape)
To know going in that the movie you're about to watch has already received the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment (where the silhouettes of three hecklers wisecrack through the film - often uproariously funny) puts the entire viewing experience on a completely different plane. The criteria for MST3K are bad films - terrifically bad. Bad and dated are even better. With that in mind, 'The Wild Rebels' was almost designed for skewering.
The film opens with Steve Aliamo as Rod Tillman, and a Sprint Car race that ends badly. Watching his car go up in flames, he auctions off the rest of his equipment (except for his guitar) and hits the dusty trail. Later that evening, at a roadside Florida honky-tonk, Tillman sings and dances his way into the hearts of three neo-Nazi bikers, who recognize their chance to nab a great wheel man in the person of the ex-racer. Accepting their invite back to the biker's shack, Tillman says no no daddio when the leader of the pack, Jeeter, lays his smash-and-grab plans out on the table. The other two resident psychopaths, Banjo and Fats, aren't so willing to let Tillman go after he refuses to join, but Jeeter persuades them to be more lenient, figuring Tillman will come back when his dough runs out.
Leaving the biker's sugar shack, Tillman immediately runs into a police cordon, who are frustrated at their failed attempts to bust up the gang. He agrees to become their spy, and later, after an elaborate ruse, wins the confidence of the gang and the interest of their house doll Linda. During an evening of dangerous heavy petting, she's the one that puts the cap on the film, when Rod asks what the gang is in it for - "Kicks, baby, we're in it for the kicks". Eventually, after a violent robbery, Tillman maneuvers the gang into a police shootout at an old lighthouse on the coast, where justice is served with a side dish of hot lead.
If there's anything in my synopsis that might make you think that, hey, it doesn't sound that bad, then I'd remind you again that the jokers from MST3K made mincemeat out of this turkey, and that their send-up is one of the higher ranked episodes from the show. From bad acting and a ridiculous attempt at replicating the language of the times, to silly plot devices and a cliched storyline, this movie has little intrinsic worth and I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Having said that though, I sort of enjoyed it. At least, I enjoyed it in the sense that I expected an extremely bad film and 'The Wild Rebels' fit my expectations to a T. The deeper question might be why I watched it in the first place - there are so many other, worthwhile films, why inflict something like this on yourself? Rather than dissect this too finely, I'll simply say that for me, viewing films from any period tends to put me in a mindset that I think might be similar to that of the original audience - in this case I think of teens uninterested in the movie playing at the drive-in and more interested in the backseat of their dad's Buick Electra. I think of a time in which I teeter on the edge of too-young-to-remember, and how I grew up watching similar fluff on TV, thinking it was still kind of cool. In other words, it isn't anything particular to 'The Wild Rebels' that I enjoyed, rather it was the time capsule element - a relic of time's past. Still, it's pretty much a stinker, though I'd say it had a slight edge over
Pearl Harbor - funnier too, although probably unintentionally.
I've included this review on the VHS version of the film, but I actually watched it as a part of
Savage Cinema: 12 Movie Collection - a dozen films of equally bad repute conveniently gathered together for one low, low price. In fact, it works out to about fifty cents a piece - a price I can believe in. I'd suggest anyone looking for this film go to that source, as the transfer and sound were worth every bit of the four bits I paid.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Opening credits blurred to protect the guilty, April 30, 2005
This review is from: Wild Rebels [VHS] (VHS Tape)
What exactly was the market for amazingly bad biker movies in the 1960s? Did some clueless fatcat somewhere actually decide that pointless biker movies were really going to rake in the dough? Or was the whole point just to turn kids off of juvenile delinquency by showing them just how stupid and boring biker types could be? Wild Rebels is a particularly brain-dead biker movie. Let's meet our cast. First up, there's Rod Tillman (Steve Alaimo), the doddering hero of this flick who goes from being a highly unsuccessful stock car driver to a driver for a gang of sleazy bikers/robbers. Fats, Banjo, and the other guy (whatever his name was) like to wear filthy, swastika-adorned jackets and really silly, oftentimes pointed hats, and - in between robberies - beat up on annoying preppies, all of which apparently appeals to Linda, their sharp-faced little groupie. They make Rod an offer he can't refuse, see - but he refuses, anyway. For some reason, he's not all that eager to drive the disgusting gang's gnarly getaway station wagon for all the robberies they plan to commit. Then the incompetent police force talks Rod into helping them bust these hoodlums - whom the lieutenant insists are very smart despite all evidence to the contrary. You can imagine where things go from here. And just when you think things can't get any worse, ol' Rod breaks out in song.
Let me be blunt. Wild Rebels is a really stupid film. Let's say I'm a bona fide biker - I've got the boss hog, the skanky chick, the whole nine yards. Let's even say I'm such a wiz on the bike that it looks like the middle of the day when I'm out riding at night. Why in the name of Harley Davidson could I not learn how to drive a car well enough to make my getaway from a bank robbery? Surely a little practice in the old station wagon would be easier than going out and finding a washed-up race car driver, convincing him to drive for me, and counting on him not to tell the police anything about my little plans for withdrawing major funds from the local bank? The misguided, disgusting bad guys in this film may be in it for "the kicks, baby," but there are absolutely no kicks to be found in suffering through what is (in the words of MST3K's Crow T. Robot) this "kidney stone of a movie."
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
for the kicks, baby. Just for the kicks . . .., May 2, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Wild Rebels [VHS] (VHS Tape)
It's too bad this howling dog of a flick isn't in the cinematic confines of where it should be - being lambasted by Joel and the Robots on MST3000. This was actually a very good MST episode, but I didn't think anyone would actually release this one-quarters baked and terminally dumbed-down piece of flotsam as an actual VIDEO release on its own!! Combines a submoronic criminal biker gang, a washed up race car driver, a bad sixties Grass Roots cover band, a whole lotta guns and a lighthouse. Worth the price just to make your life feel that much better, but wait until the MST format comes out. Funny stuff there. . .
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