Movie Review by Bill Rendall

Easy Rider

In the late sixties the movie industry was run by old men with fixed views on the way things should be done. Easy Rider opened the door for a group of young film makers to shake up the industry by making movies for a young audience.

A spirit of rebelliousness runs through Easy Rider with the counter-culture lifestyle of the lead characters pitted against the conservative values of the American south. The soundtrack is driven by contemporary rock songs rather than a traditional movie score.

The movie must have inspired many motorbike purchases over the following years. I am not into motorbikes but I still get a buzz from the scenes of bikes cruising down the wide open highways of America accompanied by the music of Steppenwolf and others.

Easy Rider was made as a low-budget independent film because the chiefs of the major studios thought it had little commercial potential. It was the creation of Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. They produced, directed and wrote the screenplay in addition to playing the lead roles.

Jack Nicholson played a pivotal role which briefly provided a needed dose of levity to the movie. His stoner dialogue about Venusians is hilarious. The movie lifted his career to stardom.

Easy Rider has some flaws. The scenes of the acid trip in New Orleans are too chaotic and indulgent for my taste. The depressing ending suggests to me that the film-makers took an expedient option to wrap things up after the plot started unraveling. However, in retrospect the ending has a poignant parallel with the death of the hippie dream at Altamont in the same year that Easy Rider was released.

Easy Rider is an enduring record of American culture at the time in which it was made and it changed the movie industry. It is a must-see.

Director: Dennis Hopper

Screenplay: Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Terry Southern

Movie Reviews | Home | Top