This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Most reviewers miss the point. Rush's film is a cinematic moment in time. The focus is a linear journey about certain events that take place over a very limited time frame of perhaps 4 or 5 days cinematically. In terms of plot it aims for a certain moment in time & it hits the mark.The choppers R first rate classic 60's builds, the scenery is great, Kovak's DP work is outstanding, Adam Rourke is the stand-out here, he holds his own easily against Jack in all the acting chops departments & Sabrina Scarf is amazingly sexy. Stu Phillips & The Poor provide excellent musical coverage & every player does a great job at being who thy R supposed to be. The fights R fun & the magical moments R numerous, for instance, Poet's decision to go with the Angels under a distant moon while sitting on his chopper at a carnival, ambient street sounds & conversations abound around other character interactions just like in real life.If U like biker flicks this is the real deal. The ending is rushed (no pun intended) that's the bummer part but the ride there is great fun. One of my personal favorites maybe cause my parents had me n my sister in the back seat of the Drive-In while we saw this many years ago the very first time. I forgive this film a lot perhaps but it's right up there in my top 5 BIker films of all time.

After being fired from his job as a gas station attendant, a man who goes by the nickname of "Poet" (Jack Nicholson) comes into conflict with a member of the local chapter of the Hell's Angels because one of them broke the headlight off of his motorcycle. Rather than permitting the rest of the group from joining in and beating Poet senseless the leader, "Buddy" (Adam Roarke) offers to replace the headlight but explains that he has some unfinished business to attend to first. Poet then follows the group to a bar where the Hell's Angels then proceed to beat up members from a rival gang. In the process Poet decides to join the fray and afterward he is introduced to Buddy's girlfriend, "Shill" (Sabrina Scharf). Poet immediately falls head over heels for her and she reciprocates by allowing him to have an intimate moment with her. This tests the relationship between Buddy and the two of them which is not resolved until the end. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this is a rather basic biker film from the golden age of the genre. I say this because there have certainly been both better and worse movies of this type. Having said that, I thought that all three of the actors just mentioned performed quite well. Unfortunately, there were also several slow scenes here and there which lessened the film's overall impact. Accordingly, I rate this movie as about average and recommend it only to those who might be fans of this particular genre.

For what this film is, it's great. No better 'genre' film exists. One of the reasons is that Sonny Barger himself, founder and still President of the Hell's Angels, is in the film's opening scene, kicking over his bike and proceeding to run over a flower bed in a city park! That's how bad these guys are! Barger is in the film throughout, and the producers probably had to pay Sonny and his 'club members' a pretty penny in order to use them and their official 'colors' (the H.A. logo, etc). Sonny also "starred" in "Hells Angel's '69", about an Angel's attempt to rip-off a Vegas casino, and appeared in almost any film where the "Angel's" name and logo were needed. Barger is still alive and runs and owns 'Sonny Barger Harley-Davidson' in Oakland, Ca, where the Hell's Angeles were born. He's probably been in in prison for 35 of the last 40 years. Barger is the nice fellow who got the'club' into drugs, gun-running and other nefarious money-making schemes, though for the most part ALL the Angels were true scum of the earth. Notice there are no apparent people of color in the movie, though Barger himself is Hispanic. "HA" has been a white-supremacist group since it began, arguments claiming otherwise notwithstanding. They are still associated with the "Aryan Brotherhood" in California prisons. Using "real" Angels means we get to not only see them in their usual habitat (acting stupid, drunk, stoned and, mostly, violent) but we also get to see their bikes, true relics of another age, some of which are probably in the Smithsonian, or at least Harley museums around the world. I was amazed that none of the bikes appeared to be of the extreme "chopper" variety with extended front forks allowing the rider to hang from the "monkey bars". As much as corporate Harley-Davidson said they officially hated these 'clubs', they took care of Sonny throughout the years. This film was made in San Francisco during the infamous "Summer of Love", 1967. As the other poster mentioned, Nicholson and Roarke also star in "Psych-Out!", with Nicholson as an LSD dealer whom the Feds are hot to catch.

This has to rate as the third best biker film of the 1960s behind Easy Rider and The Wild Angels. As bad as the script is, it's clear that Jack Nicholson as Poet, an angry gas-pump jockey who joins the Hell's Angels is a star in the making.The opening scene alone is worth seeing for any biker-film buff, as over 1,000 Hell's Angels on blazing choppers led by their leader Ralph "Sonny" Barger come rumbling down the California highway.With a supporting cast of Adam Rourke(of Hell's Belles fame) & Easy Riders' Sabrina Scharf, along with "B" movie legend Jack Starrett as a tough-talking state trooper,the movie captures the "wild" days of the 1960s Hells Angels Motorcycle gang. The movie even has a "surprise" ending. With bikers, bikes, booze, and brawls, who could ask for anything else in a better than average "B" film?