Cinema: Vicious Cycles

The Born Losers are a bunch of lorn boozers, motorcyclists who get their kicks by staging rape-ins and terrorizing towns. Even the police are afraid to touch the little-read riding hoods who swagger around California wearing swastikas and blaring “man,” “cool” and “baby” in between crimes. As is only proper in a low-grade western, vigilante justice finally prevails when a rodeo-riding half-breed (Tom Laughlin) hunts them down and makes them cry into their beards.

Though the biggest Losers will be those who pay to see the film, old movie buffs may want to get a glimpse of Jane Russell, who appears to have been thickened by the picture, and to hear one of the classic cliches in cinema history articulated by a cowardly cop: “Where did we go wrong?” From the beginning, baby.