Popular reviews

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  Review by josh lewis ★★★★ 3

  the empty man. just nothing there. brutally sad movie.

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 7

  85/100

  (35mm)

  As towering as it is confined. Grand rigs of machinery against big blue skies and expressive, haunted faces lost within the grain. Distant to a fault, admittedly, but its portraits are miraculously textured and Jack Nicholson (at a career peak here) swims right into your soul.

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  Review by Travis Lytle ★★★★ 4

  Bob Rafelson's "Five Easy Pieces" is a character-driven drama about a man unwilling to connect or commit, actively pushing away family, friends, and talent. Leisurely paced and eschewing all but subtle plotting, the film succeeds thanks to an easy energy, an unobtrusive style, and a fitting cast.

  Jack Nicholson stars as Robert Dupea. A man who shrugged off a potential life of wealth, Dupea drifts into work on an oil rig. When his father's health begins to fail, Dupea returns home where a clash of cultures ensues.

  Rafelson's focus is Nicholson's Dupea and how he surges through his life, inured to it all. The character drinks, fights, and beds women, but he latches on to very little. He seems caught…

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  Review by Scott Tobias ★★★★★ 2

  Watched again for a 50th anniversary piece for The Guardian. Incredible film. The ending is like a great short story.

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  Review by Nakul ★★★★½ 4

  "You're a strange person, Robert. I mean, what will you come to? If a person has no love for himself, no respect for himself, no love of his friends, family, work, something - how can he ask for love in return? I mean, why should he ask for it?"

  Five Easy Pieces will hover in your psyche for a long time after you see it. A deeply sad character study about 70s alienation & the society spiraling out of control. Nicholson gives one of the finest performances in cinema, the complexity and rawness he brought to his character is brilliant. That scene with his father towards the end was just incredible and something that will stay with me for a long time. Also, László Kovács cinematography is stunning, it's one of the best shot movies from the 70s.

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★½ 4

  Five Easy Pieces is an intense character study which established director Bob Rafelson’s standing as one of the heavyweights of the New Hollywood movement. It furthermore serves to some extent as a thematic accompaniment to Easy Rider, as both communicate the message of discontented characters searching for somewhere they belong together with an enthusiasm to destabilise conventional narratives in the exploration of its protagonists. Rafelson successfully juggles tones and deploys long takes to emphasise the distances between the characters as well as drawing out some excellent performances, including a memorable one from Jack Nicholson as Robert "Bobby" Eroica Dupea.

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  Review by brendan o'hare ★★★★ 1

  Someone uses "shitass" as an insult in this movie. Now what the hell is that about

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  Review by Evan T ★★★★½

  Self-imposed prisons, compounded by America’s insatiable demand for oil and manual labour. Rafelson delves deep into the lengths a person can go to sway themselves away from inner-turmoil, concocting a sobering character study focused not on the current topics of hippies or Vietnam, but on the symbolism of societal entrapment. László Kovács’ breathtaking photography merges whirring oil-wells with dusty deserts, the industrial visual style years beyond its time. To consider this film is fifty years-old is almost unbelievable, its independent essence feeling as fresh now as it did then. As brooding as Nicholson might be in Chinatown, or as committed as he might seem in The Shining, it’s Five Easy Pieces that showcases his most emotionally resonant performance on film.

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★½ 1

  68/100

  [originally written on my blog]

  A beautifully observed false dichotomy, in which the protagonist seems adrift solely because his choices are restricted to stifling genteel privilege or exasperating "cracker" vulgarity. Most of us exist somewhere between those two poles, and there's no reason Robert/Bobby Dupea can't too (perhaps becoming simply "Bob"). Granted, he's a fuckup, but hey, so am I—that malady can be managed. When the film isn't scoring easy points against hicks and snobs alike, however, it creates a remarkably credible world, one that seems largely divorced from the imperatives of standard screenwriting structure. Lois Smith, for example, as Bobby's sister Tita, suggests a complex, fascinating human being who could easily be the focus of a parallel movie…

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  Review by Christina ★★★★ 4

  “where the hell do you get the ass to tell anybody about class, or who the hell’s got it or what she typifies? 

  wielding more poignancy than just a protestation of culture, bob rafelson’s new hollywood piece is an earnest elegy entwining the roots of possibility and pointlessnes. jack in the rye, oozes unbridled verve as a shameless womanizer and wayward soul—unapologetic in his distain for the “phonies” incarcerated by superficiality while erupting chaos to their dreary environment. abandoning his musically inclined, high-society upbringing for blue-collar brewskies, nicholson’s rootless character extinguishes his potential in impulse and cheap sensations. a really touching yet cumbersome fusion, coloring the entrapment of man’s spirit in middle america and its enchantment of an untethered existence.

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  Review by Sam Meltzer ★★★ 2

  It took me about an hour to realize that the girl from Nashville was the co-lead of this. 

  A nice, moving little flick that represents the culture of the end of 60s/70s. Jack is as great as always and I like how the movie feels beautifully subtle. I may not have gotten much out of it and I didn’t exactly connect with it but it’s engaging and not forgettable. I have nothing new to add to the table, have a nice day everyone.

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  Review by Laura ★★★★★ 1

  a man that’s guided by his own entertainment and not much else. once the habits & patterns reveal themselves it’s hard to see anything else. what was charming becomes bleak. endless. just looking for someone else to try it all out on.