'The Wild Angels' was start of AIP's and Roger Corman's counterculture and biker films that itself grew into popular sub-genre in late '60s and early '70s.
Screenplay of 'The Wild Angels' is as empty as it's characters. I have no idea how accurately the film depicts the life of biker gang, but I can imagine that there are quite many boneheads in that subculture. We are introduced to Blues (Peter Fonda) and Loser (Bruce Dern) and their girlfriends Mike (Nancy Sinatra) and Gaysh (Diane Ladd). At first it seems that Blues has more substance than some of his fellow gang members as he stays cool and thoughtful guy at the beginning. He is a criminal like everyone else with no respect towards the law, but his quiet posture gives him somewhat intelligent appearance, but it starts to wear off as the story moves along, until near the end in the funeral scene when the pastor asks him, what it is you want to do? And Blues says (after stuttering), that he wants to be free, to do what we want and all that empty talk. With this immature answer he proves that he has no idea what he wants from life. Add to Fonda's wooden acting and you get a laughable scene with laughable speech that only some (naive) teenagers might find cool. Peter Fonda is terrible, he oozes coolness sitting on his bike and wearing sunglasses but when he opens his mouth that illusion washes away.
Although the screenplay is shallow and acting is passable at best, the direction by Corman is smooth and the pacing is perfect that the film doesn't feel dragging. Smooth bike riding scenes accompanied with cool soundtrack make 'The Wild Angels' one of the best examples of style over substance.
Recommended to everyone who are interested where the biker movie craze started. The direct inspiration to 'Easy Rider'.
