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Starring folk stars James Taylor and Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, this post-EASY RIDER road movie actually stands up better than the counter-culture cult classic. Director Monte Hellman creates an existential trip into the shallow end of both the establishment and the counter culture of the early 1970s.

Known only as the driver (Taylor) and the mechanic (Wilson), the duo travel the U.S. in search of chumps who will challenge their supped up Chevy to a race. Along the way they pick up a pretty hitchhiker known only as the girl (Laurie Bird, ANNIE HALL). While traveling East, they keep passing a Korean War vet in a G.T.O. (Warren Oates, BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA), who challenges them to a race across country for the pink slip to each other’s car. The cocky young men take the bet in a second, knowing that they will easily win.

The film works more as a metaphor for the emptiness of both the older and younger generations of the era. The driver and mechanic are obsessed with their cars and often challenge older men to prove they are men. The whole race to Washington D.C. with G.T.O. is about proving that their grungy original is better than some store bought sports car that some wannabe got so he’d look cool. The driver is trying to prove to himself that he is really and truly down with the new generation.

However, ironically, they stop to help the G.T.O. owner. In a way, if the driver can’t see the G.T.O. in his rear view mirror he can’t see the look in the man’s eye when he sticks it to him. You need the established society to exist so that you can reject it. The driver, mechanic and G.T.O. owner are all selfish braggarts. The girl is the only character who seems real even though we learn very little about her.

I’ve read other reviews that find the lack of development frustrating, but I found it fascinating. She tries to talk to the men, but all they can think about is their own lives. They never ask her about herself, so we never learn anything. Like the absence of a name, she represents all women who struggle with communicating with men focused solely on proving that they are men, which has a different definition depending on the man.

Because the driver and mechanic are so quiet and superficial, the limited acting range of Taylor and Wilson doesn’t affect the film at all. Oates is given the most complex character, a man who lies constantly to boost his ego. Oates again proves that he is one of the most underrated actors of all time.

Unlike EASY RIDER, TWO-LANE BLACKTOP skewers both sides and isn’t weighed down by hippie age views that seem idealistic and naïve in retrospective. Some of the scenes reminded me of FIVE EASY PIECES, however this film has characters one can more easily identify with. That might be due to PIECES daring to develop more complex characters, but the girl in BLACKTOP is not annoying like PIECES. TWO-LANE BLACKTOP is a product of its time, but also holds universal human truths that are still relevant and poignant today.