This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Having made a decent amount of money on a drug deal two Californian friends, Wyatt and Billy, take their motorbikes and set off from Los Angeles and head for New Orleans to attend Mardi Gras. Along the way they meet a group of hippies in a commune in the South West where they are struggling to grow crops in the arid soil, an alcoholic young lawyer in a town jail, threatening southern rednecks and a pair of prostitutes in a New Orleans bordello.This classic film is almost fifty years old now but still feels surprisingly fresh. There isn't really much in the way of a story; it is all about the journey and the contrasting people that our protagonists meet. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper do a fine job as Wyatt and Billy; characters who spend much of their time getting stoned. Jack Nicholson also impresses as lawyer George Hanson a man who in introduced to American counterculture when he meets Wyatt and Billy. The film certainly isn't bogged down with excessive dialogue; in deed quite a lot of the film is dialogue free as the protagonists ride through some spectacular scenery. This scenery, and some of the characters they meet, contrast with the bigotry and brutality of some of the people they encounter. This brutality isn't bloody or prolonged but it is shocking in its suddenness and the pointlessness of it. The soundtrack is also great and fits in perfectly with the story being told. There is of course a lot of drug use; which is almost certainly the main reason for its UK '18' certificate; without this it would probably be a '15'… but it would also have been a very different film. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to any fans of classic films or those fascinated by '60s culture in America.

Saw this in passing in its day and fobbed it off as the product of those with too much time and money to idle away. A bunch of movie nutters who just wanted to do drugs and play at making movies. This lot really had very little to say and seemed to care even less. From their previous movie work experiences they were armed with the knowledge that film making of the day had been given over to those who could make money from shoddy ultra cheap product. Many of these movie styles were carried over from TV. Producers simply transferred the quick writing and production techniques to Cinema. IE: 'Beach Blanket Bingo' ~ Beach Party ~ Beach...etc,etc, ~ 'Sergeant Deadhead' ~ 'Hells Angels on Wheels' ~ The Wild Angels ~ the list is endless.So, how do they go about making a movie like this? simple: get a few like minded pals, give em endless booze 'n drugs then set off without a script - make up some sort of story... anything that rebellious youth and bikers will pay money for. It just can't loose. Then troublesome producer/so-called "writer", the drug-fueled Dennis Hopper, decides he wants to turn it into the '2001' type epic of biker movies. He starts editing the footage to run for over four (4) whopping Hrs!. To get him out of the way the motley crew send him off on a paid 'holiday'. Enter a new writer and editor in an attempt add some sort of form to the endless waffling footage. Next they create a few new scenes in an attempt to tie it together - then pad it out with LOTS of hit parade tunes of the day and 'presto' anyone can have a modern classic!.What's it all about? why of course, a couple of nice young American blokes who just happen to lack drive but want to be very rich. How do you achieve that? DRUGS man! gather them cheaply from all the low lifers - sell it at quadruple the cost to the crims - who sell on to the kids - who end up rotting away but hey, that's not any fault of ours, well, is it?. But still there's something missing - what about adding some women? - easy, head off to the local Mardi Gras, add a graveyard sex scene with drugs 'n booze filmed as cheap and scungy as it can get. It looks most likely to be around-about these scenes the second unit starts working - shooting on hand held 16mm and using what looks like out of date super grainy film stock. Now add more of that corny 'flash frame' editing (belonging to the pop clip genre) and it's lookin' good, or is it?. What's missing now? - every movie must have some real mean villains - so create some red neck Southerners, write them up as super bad guys that kill off our 'nice' young blokes. Hell man, every teen 'n biker will be in tears with this. Too easy! Columbia Pictures went along for the ride and made a killing. They all got rich by spending relatively nothing. So what would you expect the Motion Picture Academy to do next? of course, heap on the awards - this is good for the wealth of the industry. Sure was, spurned a schlock of copycat follow-on's. The bored drug fueled public willingly gave up what was left of their 'hit' money for a ticket to ride. On the strength of this, Hopper would next be given an open budget to make the aptly named: "The Last Movie" it's this movie that would go on to show them up for the no-talents they really were. Easy Rider may just not have been as 'timely' as it's often lauded, it simply went to prove if you dumb down society enough they will buy anything. At least Monument Valley sure offers a good location and those machines make for 'nice' bikes. Peter Fonda and Laszlo Kovacs (the main unit cinematographer) went on to better things as they matured.Why does it take so long for us to learn to be discerning?. If the US National Film Registry can find anything 'cultural' in this mess, then have to agree with the US Vice President of the day Spiro Agnew, who called it for what is was...exceedingly unhealthy. Not so much a sign from the times but a sign of the times. Forgettable. Instead, you just might be better off watching a re-run of another classic about survival and freedom 'The Life of Pie'....Yeah man!

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.

Easy Rider was one of the biggest surprises I ever had (the biggest being George Washington), it was not at all what I expected. I was expecting a cult comedy, somewhere along the lines of Airplane! or The Big Lebowski. One thing I was not expecting was the film to send me into a melancholic depression, with tears in my eyes. Easy Rider is a perfect example of "New Hollywood" Cinema, a movement that started in the mid 60s and typically focused on more taboo subject matters, and had much darker protagonists. Easy Rider meets both of these qualifications, as it is about two drug dealing, pot-head, biker, hippies, that after making a big drug deal in California, try to drive all the way to New Orleans in just a few days for Mardi Gras, while simultaneously trying to find the American Dream. As they meet different people and camp in old ruins. The film was co-written by its leads, Dennis Hooper, (who also directed it), and Peter Fonda. It was also produced by Bob Rafelson, who was a key figure in the New Hollywood movement, and stars another key figure, Jack Nicholson, who starred in several major New Hollywood films (Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, One a Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, etc). Jack Nicholson gives the best performance in the film, which is pretty impressive feat, because they're all great and noteworthy, and he doesn't come in until halfway through the film. Jack Nicholson plays the character of George Hanson, a drunk in a small town with some pretty crazy theories about the government. But before we meet George Hanson, our protagonists have already traveled with several other colorful individuals that bring their own philosophy. Some of the best scenes in Easy Rider, are the camp fire scenes, where after a long day of biking the characters will just sit down and talk for 3-5 minutes, before going to bed. And the conversations they have during these scenes are some of the best written dialogue I have ever heard in any film ever, I don't won't to spoil any of the conversations for anyone who hasn't seen the film, but when you get to these campfire scenes, get ready for pure gold. One thing that isn't so good in Easy Rider is a montage that happens towards the end of the film, the idea is fine by itself, but goes on so much longer than it needs to that it just comes of as forced, but that's a small thing in an otherwise great film. Easy Rider is one of those films that has huge potential to change someone's life, like Ikiru or The Graduate, something that just is filled with some many emotions, and lessons, something that sticks with you long after you've finished watching it, and gets better the more you think about, something that will not only forever change the way you look at cinema, but the way you look at life. 9.3/10