Hell’s Angels – Freedom, Rebellion & Independence

On hearing the name “Hell’s Angels”, most people are likely to think of thugs on motorcycles cruising over the highway, wearing their brotherhood ‘colours’. Few will know how the Hell’s Angels came to be such a worldwide brotherhood of men on bikes and this 40-minute documentary offers insight into the roots and development of the feared biker-gang.

After the Second World War, some veterans apparently missed the camaraderie they had enjoyed in the army. Also, motorbikes were the cheapest vehicles around, so some men established groups to meet and ride their bikes together. It all seemed like good, clean fun until some of the groups started to form into actual gangs with names like “The Pissed Off Bastards” and indulged in violence, terrorising small towns they rode through. Apparently people would see them ride by and say, “there go those Hell’s angels”, hence the now infamous name.

The 1953 film ‘The Wild One’ gave motorcycle gangs new status as leather-clad, anti-establishment rebels. A quote from the film illustrates the Hell’s Angels philosophy perfectly: a character asks Johnny (Marlon Brando) what he is rebelling against and he answers coolly, “What you got?”.

Interviewees in this documentary include Ralph ‘Sonny’ Barger, undisputed leader of the Angels since the 1950′s and Hunter S. Thompson who rode with the Angels for a year in the 1960′s as part of research for his book. Opinions differ on the danger of the Angels as a group. The interviewed law enforcers insist they are a criminal organisation whilst Sonny Barger, talking about the fatal stabbing of a man by Hell’s Angels at the Rolling Stones concert in Altamont in 1969, calmly explains that if you point a gun at an Angel you get stabbed… logical, right?

Although I learned something about how the Hell’s Angels came into existence, I missed any real insight into the lives of the members, their initiations, their society. I want to know what it takes to join the Angels, if you can ever leave once you have joined and what a day in the life of an Angel looks like. Raping and pillaging and fixing your bike? Or drinking beer and fixing your bike?

The documentary is taken straight from the History Channel (somewhere in the late 1990′s) with the adverts cut out (the narration keeps announcing: “when we come back we’ll see how…”) which makes it feel like rather a cheap DVD. Why can’t they cut out those announcements too so it feels like more of a whole? Visually there’s not much happening as the interviews are simply intercut with archive footage, much of which is re-used multiple times.

All in all, an average documentary worth watching if you happen to come across it whilst zapping on TV, but not really worth the DVD.

Be Sociable, Share!

•