The "small town terrorized by a biker gang" genre came to prominence with The Wild One starring Marlon Brando, later updated to the 60's with our not-really-Indian friend Billy Jack in The Born Losers (and other examples). These were stories about explosive rebels exploding in the face of suffocating small town values, or at least cool ass bad boys (and the requisite biker mama) layered with a modicum of characterization.
However, by the time you get to the 80's, a lot of gangs were just evil troublemakers wearing goofball clothing steeped in oblivious homoeroticism. The punk or biker outlaw uniform designated them as rapists and thieves who only existed to punch holes in the fabric of humanity and upset American whitebread values.
One such gang is at the center of the Mexi-sploitation movie Siete en la mira, a gathering of ridiculously clad souls, sort of a less softer South American "biker gang" version of the ruffian cannon fodder from Death Wish 3. I put "biker gang" in quotes because they ride around in red scooters and one of the members looks like Giorgio Moroder with blue hair.
I completely buy that Giorgio would dye his hair blue and ride around on a red scooter yelling out "ciao" to delighted pedestrians, but I don't buy that he would dye his hair blue and get on his red scooter and invade a small town and beat up cops for no reason. No man who makes love with ear drums via the magic of synth lines would take a baseball bat to a cop's noggin, no matter how crooked the little porker is. So, my point is that it lacks realism.
I say that having watched the movie in Spanish without English subtitles, with my Spanish being rustier than a Pinto that's been sitting at the bottom of a lake since the late 70's. It sure seems like a movie where a gang infiltrates a small town, causes trouble, becomes pissed off at the sheriff for doing his job, holds some school children hostage in retaliation, all of which leads to a final showdown between the gang and the sheriff, now armed with a whip because a whip looks cool I guess. It all seems quaint for an 80's biker punk gang movie, considering the other main weapon is a hockey stick and the movie doesn't take place on the gentle streets of Saskatchewan. No bikes mounted with gatling guns in this one, folks.
The obvious takeaway is that the leader of the gang is very angry and the other members are intent on following this trail of anger wherever it may lead, whether to the gutter of annihilation or the victory road of destruction. More importantly, they take their fashion cues from him too. I tend to think that lost souls who are able to find solace in one another and are also able to express themselves with outlandish clothing would find some form of contentment, but what do I know about human beings. Anyway, here are a bunch of stills from the movie because I ran out of things to say.
Forget this feller's name, but he is easily my second favorite member of Ratt. Oh wait, it's a chick. Carry on.
The one takeaway from these stills is that brandishing a hockey stick is a great way to keep a child in check.
Now that's just overkill guys.
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