 I know very little about war. Born by
the time the Cold War was getting a bit tepid, too young to
understand the intricacies of the Gulf War and too flatfooted/morally
bankrupt/sexually ambiguous to participate in the current
war, the only real way to experience the excitement of decapitating
the enemy is to turn on my television, throw in a DVD, and
watch a movie.
Since
movies are my only window into combat, and since the film
I’m writing about takes place during war I was not around
to witness for myself, I’m going to have to take The
Losers at beautiful, ridiculous face value, and I’ve
come to a simple conclusion: the Vietnam War was both cheaply
produced and also kind of confusing.
Confusing might not be the best word to describe The Losers (AKA: Nam’s Angels). Actually, the plot is easily
explainable: The U.S. Military is slowly closing in on a Chinese
compound in Cambodia, which is holding an American hostage.
Instead of putting their own lives on the line in the search
for CIA operative Chet Davis, the military decides to call
upon The Losers – a collection of war veterans
turned violent biker gang. And believe me, with names like Limpy, Dirty Denny, Link and Speed, it’s
obvious that we’re dealing with some bad motherfuckers
who lay everything on the line, no matter if it costs
them their own lives.
Either
that, or we’re dealing with The Banana Splits;
I’m not too sure.
So, if you expected The Losers to be some forgotten slice of exploitative joy, you’d be half right; yes, the film packs in flesh, fighting that looks goofy enough to come from an episode of the Batman television show, and cultural insensitivity, but it also takes the time to set up moments of gooey, inappropriate romance. I’m all for fleshing out the storyline with elements of romance – it allows the characters to develop into something much more than killing machines – but a musical love montage, complete with slow motion skipping through a warm meadow?
 The sentimentality doesn’t stop there. In fact, what
better way to show your main character is a sympathetic human
being than to show him assaulting a poor Vietnamese village
before picking up a (real) disfigured child up into his strong
arms for a little bike ride?
And let’s not forget Limpy, a man who falls in love
with a woman with a mulatto child, the black father having
left them for dead. One can only pray that these scenes that
border on parody were intentionally written to be that way.
So you’ve got your punks on bikes, your blood-soaked violence, your naked girls, your bizarre moments of inexplicable tenderness and a nihilistic ending only the ‘70s could provide. All of those ingredients might not spit out a good movie, but it does give you a very silly, very watchable flick.
 Presentation
Remastered from the original 35mm negatives, The Losers comes off well for the most part There’s a hint of grain throughout the film, and the colors seem to be inconsistent at times, but that seems to be due to the limitations of the film itself; this film was shot on the cheap, and the film fluctuates between sharp and lovely to painfully soft and out-of-focus. However, there are some moments of heavy digital artifacting in some particularly fast scenes, but these are few and far in between.
As for the audio, a 2.0 mono track is the only option, and
it’s completely unremarkable. There’s no distortion
present, and the vocals are recorded well enough and the sound
effects and music come in clear a great deal of the time. Considering
the budget and a few of the native cast members who don’t
have the firmest grasp on the English language, sometimes
the dialogue comes out slightly muddled.
And that brings us to a feature that I didn’t expect
on a release like this: subtitles! Kudos to Dark Sky Films
for being one of the few of the little companies that manages
to stick in removable subtitles on their releases. Some other
companies could take down notes from Dark Sky Films. Well,
okay, I’ll admit it, their Initials are AB. Okay, you
got me, it’s Anchor Bay. Anchor Bay, are you reading
this? Can you see me shaking my fist in disapproval at you?
 Extras
In addition to the standard photo gallery, theatrical
trailers (for both The Losers and Werewolves
on Wheels), and radio spots, Dark Sky Films put
together a nostalgic commentary track featuring a gruff
William Smith (Link) and the more soft-spoken Paul Koslo (Limpy).
While a little too self-congratulatory at times (they even
manage to compliment the romantic interludes), Smith and Koslo
are warm and full of information while recounting the shooting
of the film, budgetary constraints and wild set antics, including
the near-execution of co-star and real life baddie Houston
Savage. Over 35 years have passed, but these guys are full
of tidbits.
The Bottom Line
A schizophrenic cash-in on the short-lived biker movie craze, The Losers is a fun little bit of cinema trash that strives to be something a little more important than what it ended up being. But hey, delusion can be charming.
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