They`re the gang that can`t shoot straight: tough-guy wannabes straight out of a Greek-subtitled version of ``Thieves like us``, down-market motorcycle punks (no Hell`s angels these), dead-end kids from the urban depths with foulmouthed girlfriends and parents as remote as prosperity. Innocents with attitude. Stamati, the bumbling ringleader, his faithful side-kick Takouli, and Foti, a self-styled strong, silent type who falls for a horny journalist, from a threesome with no past, no future, and a present as insouciant and short-lived as a cicada. Armed with little more than an empty shotgun and plenty of bravado, the three blow their big chance: a hold-up at a district tax office. Their Technicolor dream comes unravelled on a furious motorcycle ride north, in a comic brawl on a deserted beach, and in the final ignominy of capture under the flashing lights of a provincial disco. Life, suggests ``The Cicadas``, is as tough, nasty and indifferent as a B thriller. Vangelis Raptopoulos` characters, sketched with sure-handed empathy, with a knife-edged ear for the hard humor of the street, throb with the fervid intensity of cicadas buzzing in the noon-day heat. Nothing in their voice intimated how soon they will die.

[Απόσπασμα από κείμενο του εκδότη]