Easy Rider (1969)

Sadly Over-hyped

Fantastic!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This a morality tale about what happens to you if you're a hop-head bum with too much money. Though I very much doubt the producers saw it that way. There are things to like about this movie. The scenery, at least in the first half, is stunning. And some of the sound track (Steppenwolf, Hendrix) is good. In 1969 I was a freshman at Oxford, I thought it was crap back then. Inspired by Peter Fonda's recent remarks I just (June 2018) watched it again and (unsurprisingly) it's got no better. (Spoilers) Two layabout drug dealers (Fonda, Hopper) make a big score, then they buy a couple of motor bikes that look a bit more than they can handle, especially when under the influence of weed. Both the bikes stay implausibly clean, bright and shiny for the rest of the movie. From then on it's a road film, they pick up one bum and drop him off in a hippy commune. Cut to some skinny-dipping scenes. Then driving on, and finding themselves accidentally (probably too hopped up to notice) an unscheduled part of a town parade they get gaoled, but miraculously the cops are too stupid to find their stash of money or dope. In the hoosegow they meet the town drunk (Nicholson) and in the morning they set off together on their way to New Orleans. Stopping off at a diner, just the sight of them pisses off the local law (and as Barry Norman used to say "And Why Not?"). They leave. Queue some portentous dialogue about advanced space aliens being in control. Being of no further use, the Nicholson character is conveniently bumped off by some hillbilly Trump supporters with baseball bats, our two heroes then bike on to Louisiana where they visit a brothel but are too stoned to get their rocks off. And finally (they probably couldn't think of another way to end this nonsense) Hopper flips the bird at a couple of confederate deplorables and understandably they blow his head off. Which is what I'd wanted to do from the first minute. They kill Fonda too in the final scene and I liked that even better. In fact I cheered. So by the end, it's a feel-good movie. Not as good as Death Wish but it has its moments.

Watch america on a trip to grab her freedom through quick riches she finds out that slavery is void but safe while freedom is fulfilling but dangerous

So the film starts off looking like it's going to be the cinematic depiction of the playing song "Born to be wild". Shortly after, we discover there's a sort of spiritual/religious aspect to the plot, like the film means to clearly establish its acknowledgment of the christian faith, like there's some sort of dichotomy occurring between American tradition with its symbolism and meaning versus the late 60's hippy movement with all its abandonment of the said christian values, and the emphasis on drugs, procrastination and promiscuous sex. But the rapport is never actually established, both worlds are sort of intertwined and feed off each other, sort of, but there's no actual commentary on that or even any implied clarification. It's just ...there. Like Fonda and Hopper just wanted it to be there, for no actual purpose and without actually saying anything.When the film isn't showing the 'dudes' wasting their lives away with random acts of pointless hedonistic pleasure, it's displaying the beautiful landscapes of America on the road from the West coast (L.A.) to the southern states (New Orleans) with iconic rock and country songs from the time as they're riding their majestic bikes, the great big token of "freedom". The thing here is if I wanted to watch beautiful landscapes, I'd tune into a proper documentary about it which would be 20x better.The acting is weak from both leads, although Nicholson does well the little time he gets any screen action. The film drops in a total downward spiral that can't possibly provide any meaning to the viewer and the ending scene is a sort of activist biased criticism that plays the overly dramatic card in order to give the film a powerful closing, but it's cheap and random as hell.All in all, what does the film say that is substantial ?

I could never understand why a film about two anti-society hippies on chopper bikes going across America taking real drugs doing a whole lot of nothing became should become such a revered and awarded film. But now I do. Now that I've actually seen the film, I understand completely...This counter-culture masterpiece embraces ideals, expressions and feelings that simply were not (and still today are not) generally revealed in Hollywood movies. Feelings of freedom and life and standing out whilst everyone else sits afraid, of going for that 'big score' to find out how you to want to live your life and of defiantly standing your ground against the established order. The great majority of this is successfully expressed through Hopper's debut direction. It is at times I feel clunky and overtly stands out as work that is inexperienced, but despite that it matches the tone and messages that should be conveyed within the work almost perfectly. The iconic and tragic ending came as a total surprise to me. Not for a long time have I been so shocked by the ending of a film that I sat staring in complete silence at the screen until the song ended and the DVD reverted back to the menu. A great film with amazing spiritual and physical values that leaves me with no doubts why it did indeed influence and inspire many more works that came after it.