Let me start by saying that I'm a huge Beach Boys fan, so I simply had to see Dennis Wilson in his only dramatic role. That, and this film's cult status were enough to get me pretty excited about seeing it for myself. Unfortunately, there's little or no substance to this film, and its mostly a waste of time.
I suppose it could be compared to Easy Rider, but its only a superficial comparison. Both are road movies that reek of 60s excess, but for a number of reasons, Easy Rider succeeds where Two Lane Blacktop fails.
Firstly, this movie is roughly 90 minutes long. However, there's only about 15 minutes of dialog at most. That means that for most of the film absolutely nothing is happening. Sure, people sit in diners, stand around, fix or drive cars, but that's about it. And unfortunately, the novice acting skills of James Taylor and Dennis Wilson aren't enough to make up for this lack of anything occurring. I can't recall when I've seen a movie more badly in need of a plot.
On the positive side however, there are some lovely visuals in this movie. In fact, if it were simply an American travelogue I'd probably enjoy it a lot more. But as it stands, this movie is pretty much a non-event.
The ending is particularly weak. The first time I saw this movie was at an "art house" kind of theater, and I literally thought the projector had broken, so abrupt was the ending. It wasn't until I saw the credits rolling that I realized, "oh, that's it?".
To sum up, I wanted to like this movie. I tried, but failed.
I suppose it could be compared to Easy Rider, but its only a superficial comparison. Both are road movies that reek of 60s excess, but for a number of reasons, Easy Rider succeeds where Two Lane Blacktop fails.
Firstly, this movie is roughly 90 minutes long. However, there's only about 15 minutes of dialog at most. That means that for most of the film absolutely nothing is happening. Sure, people sit in diners, stand around, fix or drive cars, but that's about it. And unfortunately, the novice acting skills of James Taylor and Dennis Wilson aren't enough to make up for this lack of anything occurring. I can't recall when I've seen a movie more badly in need of a plot.
On the positive side however, there are some lovely visuals in this movie. In fact, if it were simply an American travelogue I'd probably enjoy it a lot more. But as it stands, this movie is pretty much a non-event.
The ending is particularly weak. The first time I saw this movie was at an "art house" kind of theater, and I literally thought the projector had broken, so abrupt was the ending. It wasn't until I saw the credits rolling that I realized, "oh, that's it?".
To sum up, I wanted to like this movie. I tried, but failed.