Two-Lane Blacktop

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Leaburn O I’m sure there’s a reason for this film but I couldn’t find it and was too bored to dwell on it. A couple of hours I’ll never get back. Avoid. Watched on DVD. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 08/28/24 Full Review Thomas H Anyone who ever set out on a doomed road trip will relate to Two Lane Blacktop. What at first seems like an Easy Rider retread quickly veers off from typical road movie sentimentality and becomes lost in the back roads of ennui and a foreboding sense of nihilism. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/25/23 Full Review Bert M Pointless with no real plot continuity. The actors never smile - seem forever constipated. A cult classic because you would have to be in a cult to think this was a good film. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review isla s This is quite an easy watch - certainly a good diverting film if you like cars, particularly classic cars. Although the film is primarily about a car race, it felt pretty laid back. Its a nice, easy watch with some interesting enough characters, so yes, I'd recommend it, although the story maybe wasn't as clear and it perhaps wasn't as tense and exciting as some perhaps may hope it to be, if you assume it to be a non stop action film. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review William L "I'd just like to know one thing, are we still racing or what? I've got speed to think about." Warren Oates, you're the dude who picks up every damn hitchhiker he sees. Your life has fallen apart and you're racing a couple of drifters cross-country while toting around hippies and old ladies. Two-Lane Blacktop immediately jumps out at you with its particularly nomadic atmosphere; we are introduced to a pair of protagonists that feel like buccaneers sailing the unpredictable, rolling waves of pre-interstate Route 66. It's a lifestyle that only attracts a few particular personalities, none of them especially well-adjusted; the emotionally reclusive 'Mechanic' and 'Driver' (Wilson and Taylor), the habitual hitchhiker 'Girl', and story-prone 'GTO' (Oates), who drops this little number on you late in the runtime: "if I'm not grounded pretty soon, I'm going to go into orbit." The hum of the engine and the miles under the belt is what keeps these people going, and to slow down is to die. Treating its setting as a refuge and brutal environment alike, Hellman's cult classic is one of the few road movies that feels totally and completely immersed in the identity of the lifestyle, a kinship that brings together plenty of those who would otherwise never meet. When Driver sharply shuts down GTO as he attempts to dive into an expositional tearjerker, it's more than a standoffish comment to prevent things from getting too chummy; it's confirmation that this motley crew is brought together not by background but instead by the path they walk (or rather, drive), no more, no less. And you only see him for a second, but James Mitchum's face is a carbon copy of his father's. (4/5) Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 09/19/21 Full Review Audience Member Perhaps all road movies should feel this desolate and uncertain. Hellman's brilliance here is taking a number of elements that shouldn't work (James Taylor's and Dennis Wilson's performances) or should be in a more conventional movie (the cross country race plot point) and mixing them together into something that feels totally unique. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Two-Lane Blacktop

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