The little acorn that would grow into the legendary Billy Jack film series of the '70s begins with this fairly unassuming biker picture. Indeed, The Born Losers looks and feels like many a cycle epic of the late '60s: there's tough talk, brutal violence (both fights and sexual assaults), hairy guys speeding around on motorcycles, and a small town forced to make its stand against a horde of invading reprobates. However, The Born Losers distinguishes itself by its ambitious approach to this subgenre. The story gets a bit unwieldy at almost two hours (fare like this usually works best at around 90 minutes) and the dialogue can get a bit ripe, but the expansive storytelling allows for some unusually ambitious plotting. More interestingly, director/co-writer/star Tom Laughlin uses his premise to explore the ineffectiveness of law at dealing with career criminals, how the justice system fails to protect the public in criminal proceedings, and how ineffectual parenting breeds the very problems society would like to avoid. Keep in mind that all these points are dealt out with a very heavy hand and couched in all manner of exploitable violence and raciness, but it's unique and interesting that the time is taken to make such points. The Born Losers is also pretty entertaining on a B-movie level. Despite some slack pacing here and there, Laughlin knows how to build tension and stage action with skill. He also gets good performances from a colorful cast. Jeremy Slate makes a nicely underplayed villain, Jane Russell steals a few scenes as an overwrought mother, and familiar B-movie faces like Stuart Lancaster and Jack Starrett lend solid support. Best of all, Tom Laughlin makes a cool, charismatic hero and his performance here makes it easy to understand the long-lived popularity of his Billy Jack character. In short, The Born Losers might be a little too creaky and contrived for modern viewers, but it's worth a look to B-movie aficionados (especially those with a yen for biker movies).

Additional Details
Country / Выпущено: USA
Company / Производство: American International Productions
Duration / Продолжительность: 01:52:57
Language / Язык: Russian / English
Russian translation / Русский перевод: любительский одноголосый

DVDRip
Format: AVI 1.0 (VFW 1.1)
Video Stream: DivX Codec 5.x or 6.x, 720x480 (1.50:1), 30 fps, 1249 kbps avg, 0.12 bit/pixel
Audio Stream #1: MPEG Layer 3, 44.100 kHz, 2 ch, 128.00 kbps avg, Russian
Audio Stream #2: MPEG Layer 3, 48 kHz, 2 ch, 224.00 kbps avg, English
Size: 1308.53 Mb (1 372 090 368 bytes)