Review of The Wild Angels

This is typically the kind of movie which retains a small cult-following and does not deserve it at all.First of all,it came ten years to late:see Lazlo Benedeck'"the wild ones" with Marlon Brando which seems very passé today too.And who could believe in a bunch of weirdoes commanded by Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra?Bruce Dern is ,so to speak,the stand-out:he manages to play the first half of the movie alive,and the second half dead(yes,he does play dead!).The final party wants to shock the spectator but nets only horse-laugh and disgust:you can't make fun of the nazi flag and get away with it,when you know the horrible things this sinister emblem represents.The rapes scenes are unpleasant to a fault(a pleonasm,anyway,can a rape be pleasant?).It seems that ,in the last minutes,the director suddenly realizes how mean is his film:he tries to redeem himself by getting a little "emotion "in the final.So Peter Fonda,in a grand gesture ,stays by the grave waiting heroically(and comically) for the police.But it is all to little to late.