Easy Rider: The Ride Back

Plot synopsis:
The protagonists are two freewheeling bikers: Wyatt (Fonda), nicknamed "Captain America", and Billy (Hopper). Wyatt dresses in American flag-adorned leather (with an Office of the Secretary of Defense Identification Badge affixed to it), while Billy dresses in Native American-style buckskin pants and shirts and a bushman hat. The former is quite open to people they meet on their journey and accepting of help while the latter is more hostile and suspicious.
After smuggling cocaine from Mexico to Los Angeles, Wyatt and Billy sell their haul to "Connection", a man (played by Phil Spector) in a Rolls-Royce, and receive a large sum in return. With the money stuffed into a plastic tube hidden inside the Stars & Stripes-painted fuel tank of Wyatt's California-style chopper, they ride eastward aiming to reach New Orleans, Louisiana, in time for the Mardi Gras festival.
During their trip Wyatt and Billy stop to repair one of the bikes at a farmstead, and have a meal with the farmer (Warren Finnerty) and his family. Wyatt seems to appreciate the simple, traditional lifestyle presented here. Later Wyatt stops to pick up a hippyish hitch-hiker (Luke Askew) and he invites them to visit his commune, where they stay for the rest of the day. Life in the commune appears to be hard, with young hippies from the city struggling to grow their own crops in a dry climate with poor soil and little rainfall. At one point, the bikers witness a prayer for blessing of the new crop, as put by a commune-member (Robert Walker Jr.): A chance "to make a stand", and to plant "simple food, for our simple taste". The commune is also hosting a traveling theater group that "sings for its supper" (performs for food). The notion of "free love" appears to be practised, with two of the women, Lisa (Luana Anders) and Sarah (Sabrina Scharf), seemingly sharing the affections of the hitch-hiking commune-member before turning their attention to Wyatt and Billy. The hitch-hiker asks the two bikers to stay at the commune, saying, "the time is now", to which Wyatt replies "I'm hip about time...but I just gotta go." As the bikers leave, the hitch-hiker (known only as "Stranger on highway" in the credits) gives Wyatt some LSD for him to share with "the right people".
Later, while naughtily riding along with a parade in a small town, the pair are arrested by the local authorities for "parading without a permit" and thrown in jail. There, they befriend American Civil Liberties Union lawyer and local drunk George Hanson (Jack Nicholson), who has spent the night in jail after overindulging in alcohol. George helps them get out of jail and decides to travel with Wyatt and Billy to New Orleans. As they camp that night, Wyatt and Billy introduce George to marijuana. As an alcoholic and a "square", George is reluctant to try the marijuana ("It leads to harder stuff", and "I don't want to get hooked"), but he quickly relents.
Stopping to eat at a smalltown Louisiana diner, the trio's appearance attracts the attention of the locals. The girls in the restaurant think they're exciting but the local men and a police officer begin making loud and denigrating comments and taunts. One of the men menacingly states, "I don't believe they'll make the parish line." The waitress does not take their order and Wyatt, Billy and George, feeling the hostility, decide to leave without any fuss. They make camp outside town. The events of the day cause George to comment: "This used to be a hell of a good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it." He observes that Americans talk a lot about the value of freedom but are actually afraid of anyone who truly exhibits it.
In the middle of the night a group of locals attack the sleeping trio, beating them with clubs. Billy screams and brandishes a knife and the attackers leave. Wyatt and Billy suffer minor injuries but George has been bludgeoned to death. Wyatt and Billy wrap George's body up in his sleeping bag, gather his belongings, and vow to return the items to his parents.
They continue to New Orleans and find a brothel George had told them about. Taking prostitutes Karen (Karen Black) and Mary (Toni Basil) with them, Wyatt and Billy decide to go outside and wander the parade-filled street of the Mardi Gras celebration. They end up in a cemetery, where all four ingest the LSD which the hitch-hiker had given to Wyatt. They experience a bad trip.
Making camp afterward, Billy declares that their trek has been a success. Wyatt disagrees, declaring, "We blew it." The next morning, the two are continuing their trip eastward to Florida (where they hope to retire wealthy) when two rednecks in an old pickup truck spot them and decide to "scare the hell out of them" with their shotgun. As they pull alongside Billy, one of the men lazily aims the shotgun at him and threatens and insults him by saying, "Want me to blow your brains out?" and "Why don't you get a haircut?" When Billy casually flips his middle finger up at them, the hillbilly fires the shotgun and the shot hits Billy. His motorcycle goes down and he lands near the edge of the road, seriously wounded in the side. As the truck then takes off past Wyatt down the road, Wyatt turns around and races back to put his American flag-emblazoned jacket over his critically injured friend, who is already drenched in blood, before riding off for help. Seeing the injured biker, the old pickup truck turns around and closes in on Wyatt. The hillbilly fires at Wyatt as he speeds by, killing Wyatt instantly, his motorcycle goes flying in flames. As the murderous rednecks drive away, the film ends with an aerial shot from a helicopter of the flaming bike in the middle of the deserted road and two bikers lying there, as the camera recedes into the sky.

Tags: cult, avant garde, dark, flashback

Review:
Not about the Motorcycles, and More of a Dramatic Bio of the ER Characters' Family.
This creation has little to do with the style, direction or intent of the original 1969 film.It tries to explain in a rather technical and overly melodramatic way effectively how Wyatt and Billy ended up on the road in the first place.
In doing that, each character is dissected and re-introduced from childhood on up, in a cinematic style that attempts to replicate some of the original's fragmented and flash-back style, but can't quite seem to keep the energy and story direction clear enough to attain a connection to the audience of any of the characters.Jeff Fahey (Wes Coast) and Sheree J.
Wilson (Shane Williams) are individually interesting to watch in their character's depth but it's hard to carry a full 90 minutes on the supporting roles.The motorcycle riding scenes are decorative more than substantive to the story (similar to what you'd experience watching an advertisement from a manufacturer, sans a voice-over.) There are a plethora of many gorgeously restored antiques and collectibles thrown in scenes that are dropped in as just set decor, which doesn't portray the connection between their owners and the bikes.
For a film that has a lot of biker characters, it seems odd that you never see any sweat, dirty hands, nor unpolished chrome throughout the story.
Even the tires seem to get cleaned between scenes, even though being ridden on dirt back roads.Technically, the locations and sets were well-developed, but there's very little tying those beautiful settings to what they mean to the characters (very similar to the bikes).
Kind of like watching Clark Griswold having just arrived after days of driving at the edge of the Grand Canyon saying, "Gee, nice.
Hey, let's get going to Wally World!" Ultimately it's hard to believe the development of the storyline - you are left wondering why each character went to the effort of overcoming whatever obstacle was thrown into their path by the script.
They could have just turned away and had the story go in an organic direction, but instead from scene to scene, you can almost hear the actors' inner voices saying "Not sure why I'd do or say that...
but, oh well, that's the way it's written." There was a LOT of time, energy and budget behind this film - that's apparent from the attempt to recreate 70 years of historical time-line locations, events and settings.
Perhaps it was too much trying to tie together the back stories of 10 different characters, for that span of time, leading to the iconic pair that took to the road in Easy Rider (1969).
I would have preferred a trimmed-down version of the story focusing perhaps simply on the father's anger and angst, the son's need to return, and the sister being caught in-between trying to understand why these polar opposites are a family, apart.As presented, it strongly resembles a social media fan page for ER (1969) with fan-produced character fiction stories, photos and video clips posted to it, each one stating "Here's why I liked ER, and why I thought such-and-such happened.".
Looking back (through the mirror?).
While this is a sequel it's also kind of a prequel, looking back on what happened before the Original "Easy Rider" (ER).
Of course some people might feel offended just by that simple fact.
And that impression will not fade with the beginning of the movie.
Actually while there is a resemblance (haircut and the general look), the acting feels like a TV soap.
And that is not good at all.Fortunately Jeff Fahey comes along and the "fun" sort of begins.
It elevates the movie a bit and it's almost a shame you don't get more of him and his character interaction.
But it's more about, where were and were are we going (concerning the characters).
There is still a lot of bike love and people who are fond of that will cherish those moments.
For everyone else, it's not really that worth while, while not really bad either..
Story Line !!!!!!!.
The way HOME has a great story line of Hickok's coming of age as of Morgan's coming of age.
The story of how the 60's pulled families apart.
I can see how the reviews were low on this movie because of the acting but the cinematography is wonderful, as well as an excellent soundtrack to portray a vivid and heart warming story of family, friends and times.
Possibly you need to have been raised it this time line to fully understand.
I highly recommend the viewing of this movie, if it doesn't effect your soul, then you are truly in trouble as a human being.The attention to detail on the motorcycles is very good, even the blue Billy bike that Wes is riding is an exact replica except for the color.
And the other vintage motorcycles makes the watch worth while.I feel the lack luster of this movie was do to the director not being able to pull the best and most realistic performance from his actors.
With better direction this could have been a top ten movie..
Not So Easy: A Ride of Flashbacks.
"Stay with me: I need to make a sequel to one of the most influential and defining movie of multiple generations, but without the solid acting, excellent music, staple plot and pot or connection to the first one," must've been the pitch.
And, incredibly, the studio head bought that.Obviously, when someone wants to make a sequel to a decades-old and virtually untouchable film, most people would see disaster written all over it.
And Easy Rider: The Ride Back is complete proof of that.Granted, I had never seen the original until I heard about this one from the hilarious How Did This Get Made?
podcast, and despite them telling me I didn't need to see the first one, I went ahead and made this a double featureespecially since the first one's considered an all-time classic.
They couldn't have been more right.
This "follow-up" had about a one percent association with the first one and that was just because both contained motorcycles.
This movie, if you can call it that, was so incoherent, messy and amateurishcalling it The Room on Wheels would be very kind.
The sound was always off, the cardboard characters were instantly forgettable and unforgivable and the music was both a complete distraction and absolutely atrocious – and I'm not just comparing it to the first one, but even if one did, they'd shoot the director.Basically, and mind you, I just finished watching this, I am guessing the movie is about a Vietnam deserter's long – make that overbearingly long – motorcycle ride home to see his disapproving father.
Along the sad (for us, that is) journey, there are about 83 flashbacks to what seems to be another movie and the plot gets so convoluted, heavy, random, clichéd and includes about 12 or so main characters that I stopped trying to figure out who was who and never cared a split second about any of them.
And this includes a woman who got raped.
Her story arc (of many others) was far beyond the caring stage once introduced, so there wasn't even an emotional tie to her.And this was all from a movie that's supposed to be a sequel to Easy Rider.
This was as much a sequel as Halloween III: Season of the Witch was to the first two Halloween movies.Mercifully, after watching 80+ mostly god-awful films to catch up on the How Did This Get Made?
podcast, this was the last I'd see for a couple of weeks when the next podcast is published.
Ranking them, this has to be in the top ten of those as the worst of the worst.
It was unbearable at times to sit through this and no one whatsoever should see it.
At least with another road-trip movie, Thelma & Louise, they had the common courtesy to drive off the Grand Canyon when they knew they had nothing left to live for.
We were NOT so lucky with the main characters here.* * *Final thoughts: Though I don't ride motorcycles, I can sense that keeping your mouth open for a cross-country trek isn't the smartest thing one can do on a bike.
Enter Phil Pitzer, co-writer and star of this turkey and watch this man with his mouth agape the entire movie.
Considering 60% of it is shot like an ad for Harleys on long, desert highways, it's entirely distracting and thoroughly disgusting watching his mouth open on the open road.
Bad, bad choice for anyone who didn't stop him from doing that.That said, one nice thing about his poor decision was that it did give me some hearty laughs and at least I got an ounce of entertainment, albeit unintentional, out of the film..
The Captain America bike couldn't even save this crap..
Wrote this review 4 years ago for another site but forgot to upload it here.
Is it a spoiler to let someone know it sucked?Easy Rider: The Ride Back.
My thoughts; Editing - Bad. Directing - Bad. Music - Bad. Acting - Bad. Camera Work - I think someone bought a dolly and thought they knew how to use it after reading the manual.
Story - Made no sense.
The ending was the best part since it meant the movie was over and it was horrible!
It's like they found everyone that made all the bad biker movies in the sixties, brought them all together, and told them to make a bad motorcycle movie and they took it literally.
Awaste of 1 hour and 38 minutes of time.
Going to erase it from my hard drive so it doesn't waste my drive space.
I give it 2 stars and that's only because of the Captain America Chopper.
Still the best looking chopper ever built.
Without that I would give it -2 stars.
This movie sucked, big time!