Wolff rating: NOT BAD
Plot summary: Two men go on a road trip across America on their motorcycles.
Biased, pithy comments: This is the quintessential road movie, doing for Harley Davidson what E.T. did for Reese's Pieces. Although this frequently hits the tops of the lists for great movies, it's clearly showing its age, and as reviewers (and list compilers) get older and less baby-boomer, its period-piece aspects will begin to tarnish. For example, the frank and frequent drug use (and attempts at cinematic renderings of a druggie's viewpoint) is now sort of passe; it's no longer cool to be a dealer, but rather dangerous and stupid. Still, the dream of the road is deep in the American psyche, and mix that with some toe-tapping popular hits and you have something that resonates even with the most vehement proponents of the Establishment that these countercultural drop-outs are rebelling against. Perhaps my favorite parts revolve around the critical look at hippie commune life---these dumb college students re-inventing the agricultural collective are running up against economic realities, and the filmmakers were smart enough in 1969 to figure it out and shoot it. Watch it as an icon from another time, but this isn't any timeless ``Gone With The Wind'' or ``Casablanca;'' it's a middlebrow drama for the hippie crowd, fading as the years progress.
Other Notes: Is it just me, or does it strike you as stupid that these goofballs carry around helmets for their motorcycles in colors that match their outfits, but insist on not wearing them and A) risking serious spinal injury and B) requiring them to suck bugs out of their teeth on a regular basis? Of course, at issue in this movie (and so many others) is the Boomer rejection of authority, any kind of authority (i.e. the authority of their parents). This movie, too, suffers from some of the problems, say, ``Touch of Evil'' has; it lacks timeless themes, takes some chances with cinematography that were daring then, du rigor now (partially because they've been ripped off since then), and deals with problems that once burned bright, but now have faded (to be replaced by new problems).
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and a young Jack Nicholson.
Directed by: Dennis Hopper