After successfully transacting a coke deal, two free spirited dropouts (Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper) cruise from L.A. to New Orleans on their choppers, taking in the counterculture (and a lot of dope and acid), while bearing the hostility and aggression of mainstream society. Easy Rider spearheaded the independent, auteur driven film movement of the 1970s (while also inspiring an onslaught of unworthy knockoffs) and Fonda and Hopper's film, which they coauthored with Terry Southern, is an incredibly photographed and edited, offbeat, rambling outdated snapshot of its time. Hopper's performance becomes tiresome after awhile seeming to have lent itself to hippie cliches, but Fonda is tremendous, and Jack Nicholson is unforgettable in one of the great cinematic breakthroughs playing a drunken philosophical attorney the duo meets along the way.
*** 1/2 out of ****
