"Now the Army Has Its Outlaws...In the Most Savage Action Picture of All Time!"
The Losers is a 1970 American action war movie starring William Smith.
It's The Vietnam War, and America is in the midst of the bloodshed. During a diplomatic mission to Cambodia, an agent is captured by the Chinese Army stationed there. Due to the agent being held on neutral territory the military can't enter, the US government hires an outlaw biker gang to rescue the agent. Placing machine guns, grenade launchers and armor on their choppers, the bikers ride into 'Nam to wreck the place.
Not to be confused with the comic, the film based on it the comic, or Nam Angels, an unrelated film with a similar premise (though it should be noted that The Losers has also been released as Nam's Angels, note the apostrophe).
This film contains examples of:
- Action Prologue: The Viet Cong attacking the transport the Devil's Advocates are in. Oddly enough for the genre, our heroes don't actually help fend off the attack, due to them not having weapons yet.
- Dirty Communists: The main antagonists are soldiers of Red China, who have kidnapped an American diplomat. This turns out to be based on faulty intel. They're actually military officials negotiating China leaving Cambodia, and the diplomat is there willingly. The bikers end up bungling the whole operation by attacking.
- Downer Ending: Due to faulty intelligence, the biker gang ends up attacking a diplomatic mission to get China out of Cambodia. The military has to launch a desperate rescue attempt, and the entire biker gang gets killed in the process. The Sole Survivor is the Jerkass diplomat (right down to being played by 'Nam vet prejudiced Art Galt), who has a diplomatic mess to clean up when he gets home.
- Nominal Hero: The Devil's Advocates may be on the side of good and rescuing a POW from a torture camp, but they're still a group of violent thugs who deal in illegal alcohol and prostitution. They end up ruining a diplomatic mission due to faulty intel, though this is through no fault of their own. However, their leader still devolves into a Villain Protagonist when it's revealed he was convicted of rape a few years before the film.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Captain Jackson is willing to bail out the bikers when they get arrested, on the condition that they actually do their jobs and don't just drink, fight and screw their way through Vietnam. Subverted when we learn that he ruined a diplomatic mission due to faulty intel.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: A biker gang is hired to rescue a prisoner of war. He's actually a diplomat there willingly to negotiate, and the events of the film ruined the negotiation.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The Devil's Advocates decide to make their rescue mission a revenge mission too when one of their own is killed in an ambush.
- Villain Protagonist: Link Thomas, leader of the Devil's Advocates, is revealed to have been convicted of rape a few years before the film's beginning. He has learned nothing from the incident, and is convinced that he was persecuted for being a biker hippie.
- Weaponized Car: The Devil's Advocates mount machine guns, grenade launchers and armor on their motorcycles before attacking the Viet Cong base.
