Masterful Movie

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

DEATH RIDERS is a simple, very low budget documentary from Crown International Pictures. The film does nothing more than have a cameraman follow around a group of 'death riders', the motorbike stunt guys who visit travelling fairs to take part in daring leaps and assorted stunts. We also see them having a good time and engaging in a bit of rodeo on the side. It's limited in the extreme and you don't really learn a lot, either about the profession or the characters, but a lot of stunt footage plays out and the documentary sufficiently captures a sense of time and place.

This is a fairly early effort in feature length documentary film-making. It focuses on the daredevil travelling show called the Death Riders who perform all manner of dangerous stunts mostly with motorbikes and cars. They jump over lines of people, crash cars, drive through fires and even lie in enclosed wooden boxes that are blown up with dynamite in a stunt known as the human bomb.These daredevils are all very young guys who are in their teens or early twenties. While the documentary follows them around, we really learn very little about the motivations of the individual riders. They mostly come across as fairly monosyllabic and reticent of saying very much. Nothing wrong with any of that, as they are young boys and their actions speak considerably louder than words but it's possibly a sign of the low tech nature of this film that little attempt was made to get their inner thoughts. The stunts themselves are obviously pretty dangerous, with little safety measures in place really; the film actually begins by naming various daredevils who died attempting the stunts the Death Riders carry out. In the current climate of today where health and safety regulations are taken so seriously, it is very interesting to watch lines of spectators being allowed to volunteer to be obstacles for the riders to jump over on their bikes! So, it's pretty obvious that this whole culture is from a bygone era and can now be viewed pretty much a sunny time capsule nowadays, a show that simply could not be allowed to exist anymore.Its very rawness and low key nature does mean that we don't see as much as we would probably like and it seems a bit haphazardly constructed a lot of the time. Yet it does capture a certain feeling of a time and place and that is rather a good thing. It's probably one as much for those with an interest in the 70's as it is for fans of bike or car stunts.

An excellent, very observant and illuminating Crown International Pictures documentary which offers an intimate and minutely detailed portrait of a traveling roadshow of fearless, courageous, even downright foolhardy nomadic carnival daredevils known collectively as the Death Riders. The Death Riders, a truly special breed of fanatical, dedicated, four-sheets-to-the-wind wacko lunatics, are shown demolishing cars, driving through intensely hot tongues of flame, blowing themselves up with dynamite, jumping motorcycles over people who actually volunteer for this honor, performing at a nudist colony (one Death Rider thoughtfully does a car wrecking stunt in the buff!), goofing around, riding wild bulls, engaging in a motor-cross race, and trekking across the country to put on their show for hundreds of awestruck spectators. Director Jim Wilson gives a sharp-eyed, insightful and wholly fascinating you-are-there look at a once prevalent, but now sadly vanished subculture and celebrates a uniquely 70's free-spirited desire to live life to its fullest extent, specifically focusing on a rare, now largely extinct type of all-American red-blooded male whose insatiable craving for wealth, fame, women, attention, excitement and adoration compels him to live life to a gloriously crazy, dangerous, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants uninhibited extreme. Vilmos Zsigmond's characteristically proficient cinematography adeptly uses such nifty flourishes as slow motion, freeze frames and split screen to precisely capture the Death Riders' mortality-testing antics in all their gut-twisting, heart-pounding, nerve-frying, marrow-freezing gonzo splendor. Further complimented by a top-rate country and western soundtrack, this fine and unjustly forgotten slice of vintage 70's Americana makes for genuinely absorbing, informative and often quite harrowing viewing.

The director of photography for this film was Vilmos Zsigmond. The photography of the film is one of its strongest points. It hardly represents the work of an amateur "learning on the job". The lack of multiple cameras is most likely a result of budget constraints. This film is worthy in many respects. The time capsule aspect, the photography, and the place it sits in the history of documentary film making. It is interesting to know that the same director of photography shot both Sugarland Express and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The human bomb act is especially interesting in the light of modern times. Just thirty years ago people were blowing themselves up for entertainment. The addition of car bombs and suicide bombers in current society adds to the dating of this film. This film is also reminiscent of Endless Summer.