"... a sickening little motorcycle melodrama from American International Pictures that is also a trailing catchall of most motorcycle film clichés to date... The whole business is laboriously detailed in E. James Lloyd's screenplay, even as it piously pleads for personal courage. But it is difficult to have empathy for the victimized youngsters after seeing them half-naked in beach-wear, coyly edging up to the cyclists... A battered-looking Jane Russell makes a brief, growly appearance as one of the parents. Jeremy Slate, William Wellman, Jr. and Paul Prokop are aptly repulsive as members of the unwashed on wheels. But it is the affectionate nickname of Jeff Cooper, one of the gang, that pegs the movie. His buddies call him Gangrene."
Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

"Featuring teenage girls being raped and tormented by rampaging sadistic motorcyclists... this exploitation picture-a mixture of vigilantism, paranoia, liberalism and feminist consciousness-must be the most amateurish bad movie that ever wound up on Variety's list of the highest grossing films of all time."
Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

"Billy Jack battles outlaw motorcyclists terrorizing small-town California girls... Jane Russell's daughter is attacked while doing a sultry striptease for a stuffed dog (really). Local cops help Billy by throwing him in jail and shooting him in the back."
Michael Weldon, The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film

"What seemed at the time just another biker film gained new interest in the 70s as the introduction of Billy Jack; he helps free young James from the clutches of Slate's gang. Good action scenes but Laughlin's use of violence as an indictment of violence is already present."
Leonard Maltin Movie Guide

"The first film appearance of the heroic half-breed Indian, Billy Jack. What can you say about a film that has a scene where Jane Russell threatens to cut her daughter's tongue out before she will allow her to testify against the local motorcycle gang that raped her? This definitely lives up to its Golden Turkey reputation, a hilariously bad film that is essential!"
Subterranean Cinema

"The funniest part of it is that even though the film tries to speak out against senseless violence, it sure does wallow in it..."
Steve Puchalski, Slimetime

"Unprepossessing meet-violence-with-vengeance movie in which Hells Angels terrorize a California town, rape teenagers, and receive their comeuppance from a taciturn half-breed Vietnam veteran. Of interest only to cult buffs as the home movie which launched Laughlin's money-spinning Billy Jack series. Laughlin subsequently cut much of the copious violence, but could do nothing to improve the rock-bottom acting and production values.
Time Out

"The plot of Born Losers is basically the plot of Billy Jack, but with bikers instead of rednecks. Aside from that it contains all the intolerable preachiness, smugness and embarrassing incompetence that would inform Laughlin's future projects... dialogue is regularly flubbed and even Boomy the Boom Mike makes an appearance in this sub-par biker-revenge pic."
The Invisible Blog of Alan Smithee

"The Born Losers distinguishes itself by its ambitious approach to this subgenre. The story gets a bit unwieldy at almost two hours (fare like this usually works best at around 90 minutes) and the dialogue can get a bit ripe, but the expansive storytelling allows for some unusually ambitious plotting. More interestingly, director/co-writer/star Tom Laughlin uses his premise to explore the ineffectiveness of law at dealing with career criminals, how the justice system fails to protect the public in criminal proceedings, and how ineffectual parenting breeds the very problems society would like to avoid. Keep in mind that all these points are dealt out with a very heavy hand and couched in all manner of exploitable violence and raciness, but it's unique and interesting that the time is taken to make such points. The Born Losers is also pretty entertaining on a B-movie level."
Donald Guarisco, All Movie Guide

Compiled by Richard Harland Smith