Two-Lane Blacktop

Directed by Monte Hellman. Written by Rudy Wurlizter, Will Corry, and Floyd Mutrux. Starring James Taylor (The Driver), Warren Oates (G.T.O), Laurie Bird (The Girl), Dennis Wilson (The Mechanic).

Bottom line: Two-Lane Blacktop is an awesome ‘70’s car movie; it’s a mixture of Vanishing Point and Easy Rider.

3.5/4

I dig ‘70’s car movies because they are so focused on cars. I watched Two-Lane Blacktop after reading about Fast and Furious. Where in Fast and Furious you have cars and women and women sitting on cars, in a '70's car movie, you simply have cars. James Taylor and Dennis Wilson make a great pair of disillusioned youths who love cars. They built their '55 Chevy from the ground up and use it to just wander the country, racing when they need money.

The characters are simply billed and I'll refer to them as such throughout this post. James Taylor plays The Driver (yeah, the musician!), Wilson is The Mechanic, Bird is The Girl, and Warren Oates is the GTO.

The premise of the movie comes when the Driver and Mechanic meet and oddball driving a GTO. The protagonists and the GTO decide to race to Washington DC for pink slips (the cars' ownership papers). The Girl is a youth who just hitches a ride. You don’t really know much about her. You’d think that Two-Lane Blacktop would be a straightforward race movie but it's really a reflective journey across America. There doesn't seem to be much character development per se but it's compelling to learn more about the characters.

I don't know much about cars but I can tell that cars are a major point of the movie. In one scene, the protagonists are driving around a car meet, scoping out the competition. They are going to wager their last $200 on a single race to last them another couple days. The Mechanic rattles off specifications for cars they pass by. Some cars would simply beat them or the race would be too close.

At one point the Girl asks, "Why don't you race them? Didn't they just challenge you?" The Mechanic explains that the Chevy might win in the quarter mile but, because the other car was heavier, they'd win a longer race. It's a switch from the car movies I'm used to where the cars are just mechanized extensions of the heroes; the image that comes to mind is Vin Diesel at the end of Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift where he wins a drifting race in his massive American muscle car.

The cinematography is basic but it gets the job done. The music is characteristic of the time; “Me and Bobby McGee” by Janis Joplin is the first one that comes to mind. The acting and dialog is solid. It's a very quiet movie; the protagonists seldom speak. I'd have expected the protagonists the more active characters in the movie and this reversal is something I'd like to discuss more. We get the most of our orientation in the world from the GTO and the several hitchhikers he picks up.

Overall, I'd recommend Two-Lane Blacktop if you’re into cars or car movies. It's a little weird, especially the ending, and existential but the experience is a positive one. I found it slightly less depressing and more thought provoking than Easy Rider. I watched it once the other day and a second time the next day and I'll probably see it again in the near future. Now, mind yourself of spoilers from here on out.

The GTO is a fascinating character. We first see him as he honks and passes the protagonists. He smiles at them as he speeds away. His first bit of dialog comes when he picks up a hitchhiker. GTO explains that he was a test pilot but got this monster of a car because “you just can’t live on the same sort of high.” The camera cuts away and follows the protagonists for a while and when we get back, he’s telling the (now sleeping) hitchhiker the same story. It took me a second to realize that it was the same story and the realization was a little unnerving. During this second retelling, he passes the protagonists again who are fixing their car on the side of the road. “They’ve been tailing me for two states…three states,” he complains. This is despite the fact that the protagonists barely acknowledged the GTO.  His complaint, perhaps, provides incite into his own insecurities.

With each hitchhiker he picks up, he gives a different story. Have you seen The Dark Knight? It reminds me of the scenes where the Joker (Ledger) tells people how he got his scars. “He's crazy because he keeps changing his story,” is the general take-away.

At first, I thought the GTO was going to be a representation of The Man. He’s a business guy, city slicker, who just bought a fancy car rather than building it. But, the more I thought about it, maybe he’s a Mankind overall. That is, maybe he's just a regular person trying to find himself. The first origin story we get is that he was a test pilot that decided to get a GTO and cruise because "you just can't live on the same sort of high all the time." Another story is that he won the car in Vegas after closing some multi-million dollar deals for his company. He’s trying on different hats to see which one fits.

The fact that the GTO is a stock, store bought car while the Chevy is homemade is a source of tension throughout the film. The Mechanic and Driver have an intimate relationship with their machine whereas the GTO knows nothing about cars. When proudly listing the specifications of the engine he says, “It’s all written on the pamphlet in the glove box." So we have the cars connected to identity, of course, but there seems to be something a little deeper than that. The GTO has all sorts of additions that hamper performance. These additions aren't portrayed as necessarily negative either. At one point, the Mechanic and the Girl are driving the GTO and have the stereo and A/C turned up. It's one of the only times they are laughing and smiling. Sure, A/C wastes fuel and it’s heavy but, it sure can be comfortable.

In something like Easy Rider we have a more pointed political statement about America but Two-Lane Blacktop in ambiguous. The Girl ditches the racers for a motorcycle rider, the GTO picks up some sailors and offers to take them to New York while the Chevy drag races some car.

The film ends as the Chevy begins to drag race. The sound fades away so you hear just the sounds from the engine. You get into the zone that the Driver must get into when he races. He looks longing off into the distance at small farm. Time slows down as the race starts but the camera’s film burns. It doesn’t matter what happens with the race or the overall race to D.C.

What is your favorite car movie? There are car movies, and buddy road movies, but are there motorcycle movies? Leave a comment below to let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!