DVD review: The Losers (1970)

It was a mission no one in their right mind would take: rescue a captured CIA operative from a highly-fortified Red Chinese compound in Cambodia at the height of the Vietnam War, Enter The Devil´s Advocates -- a red knuckled, freewheeling, hellraising biker gang comprised largely of war veterans. Led by Link Thomas (William Smith) and loosely supervised by U.S. Army Capt. Jackson (Bernie Hamilton), the curiously good-hearted gang drink and laugh and love and fight their way through the scenic countryside before retrofitting a slew of Yamaha motorcycles into armor-plated machines of death and destruction. And that´s when the real fun begins but at a high price! The Losers is written by Alan Caillou and is directed by Jack Starrett. The acting is decent, it´s professionally shot and edited. Sadly the flick is pretty boring as it takes almost an hour from the opening action-sequence before our heroes gets going and the action ensues again. Too much running time is spent on romantic subplots and so on which is a bit letdown and kinda sad as the action set pieces are quite good. There is gore in the form of big squibs, often occuring during firefights that takes place in slow motion. In the T & A department I can report that there is some topless nudity.
This review is based upon the region all (Region 0) DVD release from Dark Sky Films.
Rating: 3½ out of 7. The Losers is kinda disappointing based on the plot description, there´s a lot of talking, drinking and fooling around with hookers and very little action.

/JL