Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Reid V

  
  Hellman's 1971 road picture is a genuine slice of Americana. It takes place in the general malaise of the early 70's, as the idealism of the late 1960's gave way to chaos and the harsh reality of humanity. Oates' performance is absolutely masterful and… More
  Hellman's 1971 road picture is a genuine slice of Americana. It takes place in the general malaise of the early 70's, as the idealism of the late 1960's gave way to chaos and the harsh reality of humanity. Oates' performance is absolutely masterful and heartbreaking as a man in a constant state of reinvention in hopes to one day be grounded. Even though he is more transparent than Taylor and Wilson, there is an air of despair that hovers around all of these men as they try to create their own path in life unsuccessfully. Hellman lets the viewer go along for the ride as his camera is always placed in the backseat looking through that dusty windshield. It is an excellent piece of American cinema and a snapshot of world turned upside down.

• Ken S

  
  One groovy flick.

• Stella D

  
  i love this movie!!! this is better than easy rider, if i may say so

• El Hombre I

  
  Not everyone will embrace it, but for me it's the best road film ever made. Some are going to find this film very dull and wonder what there is to admire and respect about it. Others are going to discover all sorts of things that are not actually present in the film itself, but… More
  Not everyone will embrace it, but for me it's the best road film ever made. Some are going to find this film very dull and wonder what there is to admire and respect about it. Others are going to discover all sorts of things that are not actually present in the film itself, but are thoughts and reactions from it. Ever wonder what a zen film might be like? This might be it. It's definitely an art film, but it's not stuffy or trying to express some sort of exaggerated importance in the least. <a href="http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj203/goji9000/?action=view&current=TwoLaneBlacktop.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj203/goji9000/TwoLaneBlacktop.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

• Michael G

  
  There's no way in hell I could pass final judgement on Two-Lane Blacktop after only one viewing. True, this movie is every bit as... out there as the characters its two stars (James Taylor and Dennis Wilson) play. I imagine this movie got pushed to the wayside as it's not… More
  There's no way in hell I could pass final judgement on Two-Lane Blacktop after only one viewing. True, this movie is every bit as... out there as the characters its two stars (James Taylor and Dennis Wilson) play. I imagine this movie got pushed to the wayside as it's not filled with car chases like its contemporaries such as Vanishing Point or Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. Two-Lane Blacktop seems to go for a more cerebral approach like Easy Rider. All I can say after seeing it once is that Warren Oates was great and for all the briefness of Harry Dean Stanton's role offered, it was great. Admittedly I was getting a tad bored with this movie but I loved the last 20 minutes.

• Mike T

  
  Quietly romantic, ingeniously subdued filmmaking. This film has a lot of impact, and director Monte Hellman manages to create that emotional resonance with suggestion rather than exposition.The visual composition in virtually every scene is gorgeous, creating a uniquely aesthetic… More
  Quietly romantic, ingeniously subdued filmmaking. This film has a lot of impact, and director Monte Hellman manages to create that emotional resonance with suggestion rather than exposition.The visual composition in virtually every scene is gorgeous, creating a uniquely aesthetic expression that makes all the quiet moments more powerful.

• Lesley N

  
  Cult 70's road trip film as Dennis Wilson (Beach Boys) and James Taylor (James Taylor) race against Warren Oates to get to Washington DC, with a mysterious girl, The Girl in tow, and hitchikers picked up here and there. The film starts and ends in the middle of nowhere and… More
  Cult 70's road trip film as Dennis Wilson (Beach Boys) and James Taylor (James Taylor) race against Warren Oates to get to Washington DC, with a mysterious girl, The Girl in tow, and hitchikers picked up here and there. The film starts and ends in the middle of nowhere and there's enough non-action for inserting philosophical and metaphysical meanings into the story, if you like that kind of thing, or for remembering a time when you too had nowhere particular to go and nowhere particular to be .

• Daniel P

  
  Hypnotic, dreamy road film - something very romatic about it. And I actually kinda fell in love with James Taylor just a little bit.

• Grifty G

  
  This was made after Easy Rider and MASH were huge hits, and the studios were funding small counterculture films hoping they would hit pay-dirt. James Taylor and Dennis Wilson (of The Beach Boys) drive around in a souped up 55 Chevy, racing against local hot rods for money. Along the… More
  This was made after Easy Rider and MASH were huge hits, and the studios were funding small counterculture films hoping they would hit pay-dirt. James Taylor and Dennis Wilson (of The Beach Boys) drive around in a souped up 55 Chevy, racing against local hot rods for money. Along the way they meet Warren Oates, an older, slightly awkward driver of a 70 GTO who they challenge to a cross country race. The prize is the other guys car. It is this plot point that makes the movie such a bizarre experience. As a viewer you are ready for some sort of Cannonball Run type of back road racing, but the drivers seem as if they are in no hurry, often stopping to sit down and eat at diners, pick up hitchhikers, helping the other guy out with engine work, and even letting each other drive the other guy's car from time to time. This is really just a road movie, where drivers drift from one town to the next, looking for the next drag race to bet on. If they took out every reference to the cross-county race, it wouldn't change any of the scenes and it would make a hell of a lot more sense. Oates is the only character that's fleshed out at all, Taylor and Wilson are pretty mush just soft spoken driving machines, and one of the blandest hippie chick characters is thrown in for one of the characters to inexplicably get hung up on. All in all a mixed bag.

• Patrick D

  
  This film works sort of like a response to Easy Rider. Accept these characters aren't really looking for some kind of spiritual answer to some big unnamed question. These people have reached a sort of plateau. The two young dudes have now achieved a super fast hot rod, and just… More
  This film works sort of like a response to Easy Rider. Accept these characters aren't really looking for some kind of spiritual answer to some big unnamed question. These people have reached a sort of plateau. The two young dudes have now achieved a super fast hot rod, and just seem to be racing around going nowhere really, but traveling many miles going there. The girl is just lost and is hitching rides looking for something, but seems to have almost accepted that there's nothing out there. Now Warren Oates' character is really interesting. He's sort of like the older version of the two young guys, he's plateaued years and years ago and has now gone sort of crazy, constantly lies, and it strangely delusional. As if he is just looking for a purpose somehow but all he knows is cars and his sweet GTO. As for the guys, they are on there way to Oates' situation and really all they talk about is cars and racing. Anyway all the parties meet and get involved in this mass race with each other. For the guys it seems like a last effort for meaning, for the girl it seems like something fun to get involved in, and Oates, well it's hard to tell. Interestingly there's elements of the martial arts film with these Ronin types wandering around from town to town challenging others, but not with physical combat, with car speed. Either way this is a film that sort of defies a good summary and is one you gotta just see, a great road movie.

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