Easy Rider

Rating: R

Movie Release Date: July 14, 1969

DVD Release Date: June 4, 2002

Plot 411: Two friends ride their motorcycles cross country to Mardi Gras and encounter all walks of life along the way.

Review: This movie is a trip - literally, figuratively and heavily drug-induced. It's a road movie that travels from L.A. (Los Angeles) to LA (Louisiana). As the audience, we're along for the ride and encounter all sorts of characters with Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper). The scenery we partake in along the way acts as another character in the film. For me, the best part about the movie was the score, which I think excellently represents America at that time. Overall I found this film to be a little confusing to follow. Perhaps you need drugs to thoroughly appreciate it in its entirety? In any case, I think it's about the death of individual freedom and the hypocricy of an America (and Americans) that only believes in freedom as a theory and not as a practice. I think this message was probably prevalent at the time of the movie's making, but I feel it continues to be current in today's world as well. Having just watched Death of a President, it is clear that individual liberties and freedoms are still being taken away from people. Even though that was a fictional account, we can't turn a blind eye to its implications. Nothing much has changed in the past 40 years since Easy Rider, has it?

Watch It: For a period piece that shook up the world.

Skip It: If you're not interested in movies that make you think. Hopper definitely made this movie to make people (and generations) think.

Trailer: