Movie Review: Chrome and Hot Leather from Bikes in the Fast Lane

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Movie Review: Chrome and Hot Leather

June
2010

  File under Movie Review Product Review
  Author: Mike Werner
  Location: Normandy, France

Score:
Plot: 3
Acting: 3
Visual: 3
Sound: 2
Nudity: None
Gore: None

One word spring to my mind when I think about this 1971 movie: predictable. From the first few minutes of this revenge movie, you know how the movie is going to go, and how it'll end. Nevertheless, the movie ain't bad. The bikers are the bad ones, a 1%-er gang who are up to mayhem.

The movie has its moments, like a bunch of choppers chasing noisy 2-strokers, and not catch up until they reach the dirt. Starring William Smith, Larry Bishop and soul singer Marvin Gaye. It's luscious Cheryl Ladd's first real movie (though she's in it for about 5 seconds), and the movie also features, though for a brief moment, those other Hollywood bikers Erik Estrada

and Dan Haggerty

(though I could not recognize Estrada).

It's funny seeing serving soldiers, specially Green Berets, with mid-long hair. Guess the actors didn't want to cut their hair. I liked seeing the Green Berets start their own motorcycle gang, complete with patches, in this case sergeant stripes.

At one moment in the movie, one of the choppers breaks down, and they peg him to the service station. It's one of the only times I've seen it done in a movie. As far as the fighting capabilities of the soldiers goes, all I can say is wooow... they are really, really bad! But one thing, don't mess with 2-stroke motorcycles, their smoke will kill you.

Plot: A Green Beret returns home from the Vietnam war to find that a gang of murderous bikers has killed his fiancee. He calls on several of his Green Beret buddies to come and help him take revenge on the gang.

Quotes: Lots of cheesy ones, like "you don't get paid to think"or "You want to be the man? Take your best shot".

Verdict: An okay movie, useful for rainy Sundays when you don't go out riding. It's like the studio was riding on the biker exploitation movies of the 70's, and had a few writers locked up, smoking big ones, trying to come up with a novel idea, and this is it. The story has some merit to it, like many revenge movies. William Smith, a hard-core movie biker, does a pretty convincing job as the leader of the biker gang. Watch the trailer below.