The Rebel Rousers/Review

Alright, let me quickly get this out of the way. This movie's a mess. A COMPLETE mess. Yeah, I figure what you might be saying, "How can you go wrong with a biker flick starring Bruce Dern, Jack Nicholson, Cameron Mitchell, Diane Ladd, and Harry Dean Stanton?" My advice is simple. Just watch the movie and find out.

The plot goes something like this...Cameron Mitchell plays an architect from Los Angeles by the name of Paul. We find out that Paul often makes frequent visits to a small, sleepy Western town in Arizona. What he's got in mind this time is some marriage proposals between his pregnant girlfriend, Karen (Diane Ladd) who have had a shaky relationship in the past. Earlier that day, Paul runs into an old-time high school buddy, J.J. (Bruce Dern) who's the leader of the rowdy, "Rebel Rousers". It appears that Paul's rendezvous for some quality time with Karen is the beach (which looks a LOT like the Malibu shore. How did they get there so fast? Nevermind.) But it just so happens that the Rebel Rousers are partying in the same area. This causes a few of the Rousers to attack Paul's car and come close to having their way with Karen. Since Paul doesn't do nothing about it, J.J. intervenes and calls a halt to the madness and invites Paul and Karen for a drink with the rest of the Rebel Rousers down on the beach. If you were wondering why Paul never felt the need to snap back at the bikers earlier, he finally lets loose with some resistance when Karen gets roughed up by the Rebel Rousers again. But poor Paul catches about six punches to the face and three kicks to the chest from the Rebel Rousers and finds himself unconscious. Now the biker boys are fighting over who gets to have fun with Karen. But J.J. decides that a game will decide the winner. And just to sum up how ludicrous this movie is becoming, this is how J.J. describes the game to his Rousers, and I quote:

"Here's what we're gonna do...We're gonna play a game on the machines. And the winner of the game gets this woman!

....Now my bike is way down there by those rocks. So we'll all go down there. And we'll work it out. And the winner will end up with her...The winner's gonna end up with her..Alright? And you gotta win!"

Well, whatever this "game" was, it ends up taking ALL FREAKIN' DAY LONG and poor old, dumb, sobbing Karen just has to sit there til night when this game finally ends. In the meantime, Paul finally wakes up from the so-called massive beating he took (seriously, he acts like he just survived a car wreck) and makes it back to Arizona for some help. By the way, this Arizona town is made up of mostly mexicans (all played by caucasians!) Paul eventually finds help from a Mexican fisherman named Miguel (Robert Dix--In brownface!!!) and Miguel rounds up a few fellow friends with rakes and pitchforks to walk all the way back to the California beach to take Karen back. And I'm sorry to ruin things here, but neither Paul nor the Mexicans do a damn thing to the Rebel Rousers. Both the gang and the movie come to an end when J.J. "Finds his place in the world".

It sure sounds like something went wrong here, does it? I'm under the impression that either the script to this flick was lost during shooting or it was constantly being re-written. It's as if all that survived was the story treatment (which must have ran for about 2 pages) and by the 3rd day of filming, everything must have fell apart and the filmmakers (or the actors) just decided to make up all their lines and actions on the spot. You certainly get that idea when Bruce Dern and his fellow Rousers (which include Jack Nicholson and Harry Dean Stanton) who are just constantly barking their lines over each other's. There's even a few occasions when Jack causes Bruce to grin and momentarily lose it during a scene (does this mean the actors were either drunk or high too?) And the other "Don't give a damn" feeling I caught with this movie was--As I already mentioned--was the anglo actors playing Mexicans. One of them (playing a deputy) looks just Boss Hogg from the 'Dukes of Hazzard TV show! Nice Speedy Gonzales accent there too, Boss. Oh and check out the Burt Lancaster lookalike playing someone from the Spanish Inquisition! One last thing, Jack spends the entire movie with a nasty lookin' brown spot on the back of his pants. Yuck, Jack. If I do find a way to recommend this movie, it's to watch it and enjoy it as the failure that it is.

Reviewed by Laydback