025 - Two-lane blacktop

Synopsis: Street car racers get involved in a race across the US

Director: Monte Hellman

Actors: James Taylor, Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates

Date: 1971

How viewed: already in my collection

Rating: 3/5

David Meyer says:

.. lots of driving, lots of quiet landscapes, a little sex, and several admirable cars.

I say:

The main attraction for me was the depiction of the street car racing in the US in the 60's/70's - built from scratch hotrods or souped up road cars racing illegally over a quarter mile - did this happen anywhere else in the world - does it still happen?? Taylor (the 'driver') and Wilson (the 'mechanic') drift around in their customized '55 Chevy racing other petrol heads, until they meet Oates in his '70 GTO and agree to race across the US to Washington DC, with the prize being both cars. However, they don't seem too interested in racing - a lot of the 'action' takes place in gas stations/diners, they get involved with a girl, Taylor and Wilson take time to fix Oates' car, etc, etc. The choice of musicians Taylor and Wilson is weird - but they don't say much - Wilson says 'I must check the valves / carburetter jets / exhaust' every 10 minutes or so, and Taylor says even less - you wonder if they just needed a couple of big names to draw in the punters - these days they might have signed up Peter Andre and Pete Doherty! Oates gets all the script telling different tales to each hitch-hiker he picks up (including HD (aka Harry Dean) Stanton) and one the best moments is an old woman with her grand-daughter who almost raps 'goin' to the graveyard, city car killed her folks, goin' to the graveyard..'. Good ending though, even though it feels like a cop-out..