Ameriatch One of the best films i have seen

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

jhand2651 I, John Hand, was the editor of CUSTOM CHOPPER Magazine in 1971 and I had a car and bike painter friend named Bill Carter who was appearing in the movie with his Harley. So I went out to the desert and watched them shoot some scenes. I put a report of this movie in my magazine but I have to admit that I never saw the movie later. Mr Demme the director sent me a letter with some clarifications about the movie and I put the letter in my magazine. Jonathan Demme, the director also told me to keep my eye on Scott Glenn, because he was going to go places. Well, as it turned out, they both went on to make and star in the big blockbuster and award winner SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Who would have thought?

john jorde Saw this on netflix when I looked up The Harder They Come. Really fun movie until the virginesque girl gets gang raped and killed but for some reason no one is really freaked out and the movie sorta continues on without missing her. There are some fun gems in this movie like the really smooth drug dealer guy in the beginning who seems half asleep and the funny dialogue between the bikers in the beginning. Also mixed in is a little racial conflict. Like when the dune buggying wasp couple finds the escaped good guy who happens to be black. The guy wasp admonishes the tired/thirsty man for being on welfare but then asks his girlfriend to have sex with guy, when he refuses they try to run him over with the dune buggy! The bad guys come straight outta sixties westerns except for the gang raping parts-which can be really upsetting but the fact that the movie was made by Jonathan Demme(Silence of the Lambs) sorta makes sense, as the late sixties and seventies B movies were training grounds for future directors("Duel"-Spielberg). This movie is basically a sexplotation and violenceplotation flick but it has its unique moments, netflix it now. And while your at it, get "Inglorious Bastards." When people say the 1970's was a focal point for which creativitey exploded away from itself into separate factions-I believe it when I see this movie.

MisterWhiplash On the one hand, after watching Angels Hard as They Come, I could understand why it's not higher rated or even been seen anymore than the common garden-variety B-movie biker flick, as it is true shamelessly Corman-style. On the other hand, I ended really liking how it was executed. The collaborators, Joe Viola and Jonathan Demme, wring out plenty of dirty fun out of such violent and twisted material without 'softening' it up like some biker movies of the period. It's got almost no characters from the 'outside' world, just bikers, and maybe a few hippies (and yes, one of them an out-of-place and amusingly one-note Gary Busey). So part of the entertainment comes from bikers just being as rough and crazy as possible. But with this the writers come up with some unexpectedly funny moments, some more harsh than others, and sometimes even commenting on some of the absurdities of the Dragons. This is done dialog-wise many times- as Viola's style isn't nearly as strong or affecting as Demme provides- and sometimes through ideas shown and it all being realistic even as its crudely artificial.One such scene, as a quick example, is when the leader of the pack General (Charles Dierkop as a well-played maniac) is seen from the waist up having short moment of pleasure, then as the camera pans down his motorcycle is getting a cleaning (pun intended, but then the title itself is almost there just for a goof). Or in having one of the side characters, the one black character of a story, adrift in the desert, almost putting to a stop the Corman rule of there being almost constant danger &/or fights &/or sex/nudity/et all. Other ideas abound in the crazy extremities that the Dragons go through against the three Angels (one being Scott Glenn in maybe the best 'acting' of the film), including a final idea that never does come to fruition. All through, the filmmakers basically acknowledge what kind of film they're making, and don't skimp out on the early biker movies might not have dealt with, at least as much. Rape, racism, torture, pure decadence and decay in the devastation. But the factor of it all having practically a Western-movie element to it, a B-Western at that, is not thrown away for a story without focus.It's arcane and simplistic in music, usually exploitative in themes and character, and it's got the cinematic flavor of a beer soaked ashtray. But to hell if it isn't one of my favorites of its kind, if only on the most guilty-pleasure level.

phil-lynch I mistakenly watched this DVD thinking it would offer something slightly different from the usual Hell's Angels road movies. The fact that the title suffixes "As hard as they come" I was literally expecting a proper blood & guts flick-instead I got a 2nd rate movie length version of a staple A-Team story line! The basic premise is Long John (Scott Glenn) is seen arranging a shady drugs deal out in the desert with his buddies Juicer (Don Carrera) and Monk (James Inglehart). They get tailed by the police but eventually lose them and end up at a petrol station.Here they meet fellow road warriors "The Dragons" and are invited to a hippy commune that the Dragons have gatecrashed-for a party.Basically, we discover that the Dragons are a little heavy handed with the hippies, climaxing in the attempted gang rape of one of the hippy chicks that Long John has taken a liking to. Long John intervenes and in the melee the hippy chick gets stabbed.After a Kangaroo court presided over by the Dragons leader "the General" (Charles Dierkop) the Angels are found guilty and sentenced to "fun & games" (dragged around on the back of the Hogs) and eventually death.Monk escapes and alerts the rest of the gang and the Hippies finally get some backbone to help the Angels. The movie's finale is of the Angels whupping the Dragons and everyone going their separate ways.The "violent" scenes are marred by terrible lighting and really bad 70's fisticuffs, the movie is clichéd and doesn't work on any level-it's not even amusing from a nostalgia point of view.Rent/Buy this movie at your peril!