Easy Rider (1969)

What's ironic is that Luke Askew "starred" as SSG Provo in The Green Berets about two years ahead of Easy Rider ...!Talk about culture clash ...He was great in both flicks and I always enjoyed him as an actor.I do have a bias on his role in the Green Berets as I eventually became a Green Beret myself serving 16 years in SF, although I modeled myself more towards Jim Hutton's role As the "Scrounger" in that movie.

First off these guys are not heroes. The only way they were able to buy fancy motorcycles, (built by the innovation and sweat of others), or pay for gas or meals, was because they sold cocaine. That drug will addict others and ruin their lives. I get the idea of letting a road trip story just happen. But I need to know some basics. Let's at least hear what these two characters rejected and why. They aren't kids. They've done some living prior to this trip. It's o.k. to live off the land or even live communally, but if you use any products or services produced by others, you have to admit that you are benefitting from the labor of others who live more conventionally. So you're rejecting the very thing that produced the stuff you need and love.What exactly was Dennis Hopper's skill in this life? He played the same guy in so many films, and that guy seems to have been himself in real life. I did find it mildly interesting to see the way life was back in the 60s but the film was made for people of the time, so they probably already knew how life was. Having said all that, there were some good moments. I liked Fonda's acknowledgement of the farmer's good life, the pure joy of the naked river swim, and the stoic bittersweet angst of the Fonda character. Rednecks are real as were hippies. But there were plenty of other good hardworking people in the 60s and now that don't fit those narrow categories of living. We don't meet many of them in this film., unless you want to include the small town cops. Traveling around with no purpose, doing drugs and frolicking with hookers may seem glamorous to some, but I don't really get it. I do get the joy of the open road. By the way, what did people like this do in terms of deodorant, floss, and toilet paper? They look like they would smell bad.

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.

I try so, so hard to enjoy "classic" movies, I really do. But I just can't get why everyone's so fussed about this mess. Low-budget, quirky films can be done really well. So why wasn't this? Half of it feels like an extended music video, while the other half is an incomprehensible series of so-called "events" that lead to nothing. Every time I felt like something might happen in the plot, it just... didn't. When people say that this is classic, I think they're just referring to the feeling it gets across. Sure, it vaguely sends out a message about corporate America and how skewed their idea of freedom is, and it definitely drives the whole drug culture point home, but what else? There isn't really a plot in sight, and since it's completely lacking in artistic merit, it isn't effective overall. Weird editing and rock music doesn't equal a good movie, and I can't wrap my head around the appeal. The only person that's really doing any half decent acting in 'Easy Rider' is young Jack Nicholson, playing pretty much every character he played in these days. But of course - as lazy writing leads to lazy plot - he's killed off without an afterthought. You've got no emotional connection to these characters whatsoever, so all I felt when he died was disappointment, as I thought that maybe his introduction to the film was finally the end of the tiring exposition. After the novelty of the rebellious music and explicit scenes wears off, what are you left with? You're left with this: a badly edited, poorly acted, lazily written "classic" just waiting for nostalgic people to come along and tell everyone how great it is. Almost every single character in the movie is annoying and two-dimensional, never developed further than the occasional weed-hazed angsty comment or the edgy, innovative edits that signify... something, maybe. Don't even get me started on the ending. Without the development of tension - not a single bit - Billy and Wyatt's deaths are really just a relief. Finally, it's over! After an hour and a half of cheesy montages and misplaced avant garde scenes, poorly disguised excuses to use some European-style artsy camera-work, I couldn't care less that they're killed. The first time I saw this and the final credits rolled up on screen, I couldn't help but laugh: was that seriously the end!? Clearly the lack of direction just got too much for them to handle, so they washed it all away with a half-baked attempt at a meaningful ending. The stagnant acting from Fonda and frankly irritating performance from Hopper add precisely nothing to their murder, and the fact that people actually thought this was anything but rubbish when it came out baffles me. Basically, I think this film's success is due only to the state of America and New Hollywood cinema at the time. Once the Hayes rule was abandoned, censorship thrown to the wind, everything was exciting - drugs, sex, alternative lifestyles, motorbikes... And that's all this film is, a montage of youth appeal and trying too hard, while simultaneously coming across like no effort was put into its production at all. Oh well. At least it's got some Hendrix in there.