Rent Easy Rider (1969)

Top cult 60s film. - Easy Rider review by NC

Must be biggest profit ever in film making. Simple film, simply made, unknown folk, great music, great bikes. One of top ten ever films for the reasons above...............

As much as I appreciate the reverence for this film, it was never more than average for me - Easy Rider review by TB

The film that made Dennis Hopper, which I have seen repeatedly on various greatest films ever lists.

But it doesn't really do very much for me. The opening, showing Hopper and Fonda conducting a drug deal which then allows them to bike across America whilst taking lots of narcotics & mixing with random people, just didn't click. I do absolutely acknowledge that in 1969, this film will have had a very different and profound impact, judged not only by how it was received but it's box office haul.

The film however does go very very slowly. There is a welcome appearance from Jack Nicholson, who it has to be said seemed to be indulging in almost as many drugs in real life as the fictional characters. In some scenes, he is certainly flying high...

The other equally strange thing is the ending. It doesn't make sense and also is so random that after it happened, I remember thinking "Errr OK is that it?" and then seeing the titles come up.

As much as it will be a landmark for many film buffs, it was lost on me. Maybe will rewatch it again sometime, but not in any rush to

Cult Classic - A Must See - Easy Rider review by GI

This is probably the most famous counter-culture film ever made and it certainly impacted on its initial release. It's a road movie and in many ways a picture postcard vision of America as seen through the journey of the two main characters played by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. It's also a quite sharp condemnation of the American Dream and the idea of the US being the land of the free. In many ways it's a bizarre film with little, if any, real narrative story other than of two young men who score big with a drug deal and on their Harley Davidsons head off from Los Angeles to New Orleans for the Mardis Gras and then onwards to Florida. On the journey they meet corruption and bigotry for their long hair and apparent alternative lifestyle challenging the various rednecks conservative values along the way. Ironically the characters are rooted in the mythology of the American West, the film is littered with 'cowboy' iconography, and yet face harassment from the very people who worship the legends of the frontier. Jack Nicholson, playing an alcoholic lawyer who joins them for part of the trip, gives a prophetic speech about how they represent the free individual which is a threat to the very people who preach about freedom. A speech made just before his murder at the hands of rednecks. With it's drug use, prostitution and challenges to those conservative values this was a film way ahead of its time and yet came towards the end of the swinging sixties when sexual freedom and drug use had already been epitomised in music especially. Of course the film has a fantastic soundtrack and it's use of enigmatic flash editing and the infamous LSD trip sequence make this an interesting watch today and I can see why some modern viewers may find it a challenge but it's still an important and stimulating film and one every film fan must see.