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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 8103
Released: December 14, 1999 |
| Our Price: $6.99 |
| Used Price: $5.12 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Returning home to his father's deathbed, a gifted pianist who has been living a wasted life is forced to face issues which will change his life forever.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 28-AUG-2001
Media Type: DVD
Description of Five Easy Pieces:
This subtle, existential character study of an emotionally distant outcast (Nicholson) forced to confront his past failures remains an intimate cornerstone of American '70s cinema. Written and directed with remarkable restraint by Bob Rafelson, the film is the result of a short-lived partnership between the filmmaker and Nicholson--the first was the zany formalist exercise, Head, while the equally impressive King of Marvin Gardens followed Five Easy Pieces. Quiet and full of long, controlled takes, this film draws its strength from the acutely detailed, nonjudgmental observations of its complex protagonist, Robert Dupea--an extremely crass and frustrated oil worker, and failed child pianist hiding from his past in Texas. Dupea spends his life drinking beer and sleeping with (and cheating on) his annoying but adoring Tammy Wynette-wannabe girlfriend, but when he learns that his father is dying in Washington State, he leaves. After the film transforms into a spirited road movie, and arrives at the eccentric upper-class Dupea family mansion, it becomes apparent that leaving is what Dupea does best--from his problems, fears, and those who love him. Nicholson gives a difficult yet masterful performance in an unlikable role, one that's full of ambiguity and requires violent shifts in acting style. Several sequences--such as his stopping traffic to play piano, or his famous verbal duels with a cranky waitress over a chicken-salad sandwich--are Nicholson landmarks. Yet, it's the quieter moments, when Dupea tries miserably to communicate and reconcile with his dying father, where the actor shows his real talent--and by extension, shows us the wounded little boy that lurks in the shell of the man Dupea has become. --Dave McCoy
Five Easy Pieces Reviews:
five easy pieces 
2009-11-24 - Birthday gift, haven't watched it yet, but remember it being a great older movie worth having for your library.
Who Cares Wins 
2009-11-03 - I can see where Nicholson's character is always running, both literally and figuratively. I can see where some might interpret this movie as perhaps being "uneasily realistic", at least in parts. But overall I find myself not caring one way or another about Bobby. At first I tried to force myself to accept his faults, and to not try to dislike the movie just because I couldn't stand him as a person. But from beginning to end I just couldn't care less about Booby (a far more apt moniker for this self-hating fool). Perhaps this movie was made with the intention of having the viewer not care about Booby, or his officious family, or born-to-be-a-target-for-self-hating-boobs girlfriend. I don't know. I just know that pretty much nothing can save this movie from being a throwaway. No real drama, no characters or situations worth caring about...it's hard to even get particularly depressed, since apathy intercedes in the end. Two stars for the goofy antics of Booby's girlfriend, and the even worse nitwitticisms of the woman hitchiker. Completely boggling that this movie won so many awards. Was probably influenced by the not-quite-as-bad Midnight Cowboy from the year before. To quote a similarly bungling Anthrax track from the '80's, who cares wins. At its best, an ambitious mega-failure.
classic
2009-08-03 - You can go back to Five Easy Pieces through stages of life and gleen something new. I first saw it as a long haired teen with Cerebral Palsy, in the late 80s. Bobby became my idol. Every kid who has ever been picked on has people he or she wants to stick it to--like Bobby did that waitress. Uncomfortable with how I walk? Hold your discomfort between your knees, sorrority sister.
The 1970 film was made in that post- Manson, Altamont, Kent State aimlessnes; this counter-culture thing is not going to work. Now what? BUT the theme is timeless: we are wondering in the woods, and man, we are PISSED!
Bobby also wonders: from state to state, women to women, identity to identity, life to life. His problem is, he is smart. He is aware of his own aimlessness. He has nothing, but does not know what he wants. He has opportunities, but never takes them. He demands honesty from everyone, because that is all he can offer anyone.
As a teenager, I fell in love with Nicholson's pyrotechnics. Bobby does what he wants, says what he wants, takes what he wants, and has sex with who he wants, all while pointing out the hypocrocy of everyone around him.
He is very funny in his rage, and does and says all the things we want to, but fearfully stop ourselves. If you have never felt this way, you have never felt condecended to, excluded or mocked .
As a 40 year old, Bobby becomes more complex to me. He is wounded, and can't commit to anything or anybody. Underneath the anger is a man fundimentally confounded about who he wants to be, and who he wants to be it with. He can confront anyone, but does like a petulant teenager; the teenager I was, a long, long time ago. But he can't confront himself. He is a boy in a man's body, and a very sad boy at that
Which raises a question: Is Nicholson overplaying this? It is easy to fall in love with Bobby's bull in a china shop style, especially when, most of the time, he is right on the merits. His confrontational attitude must have been liberating to watch, given the socio-political context of 1970.
Butt is easy to forget that in the end, Bobby's anger--which really keeps him from the people and things he is so primally afraid of--will doom him to a meaningless, empty life. The question is, does the magic Nicholson is working here obscure the true flaws of a very wounded character?
I am not sure, but the more i watch this movie, the older i get, the more I pity Bobby. Whether this is a function of my own age and experiance or seeing past the suculant vaneer of Nicholson's acting, I don't know.
But I do know Five Easy Pieces is one of the few period films I watch over and over for it's complexity. You're not going to find this depth in Easy Rider or Bob Carol Ted and Alice. Even with all the 1970 implications of this film, we know people like Bobby, whether we run away from them or try to help them. You could make this film today without changing a thing.
Well, maybe Karen Black's hair.
A 5+ Star Film To Be Sure: BUT BEWARE, DON"T BUY THIS DVD...
2009-06-15 - .... Of the roughly 1000 DVD's I've had the chance to view, top to bottom, this is only time I have experienced a DVD -(the current 2006 print dvd is what you get, not the 1999 listed) - in which the sound and sections of the image, etc. were WORSE, MUCH WORSE than a decades old VHS.
A real shame. Seriously:save yourself a headache trying to make out dialogue, etc. and wait for a new edition to be released. It deserves a Special Ed. w/ some extras, and will get it someday. Netflix it or whatever until then. What a bust! Just wanted to save anyone who might read this the bull****.
Yours,
J. P. McMurphy
3.5 stars out of 4
2009-06-10 - The Bottom Line:
Though the stark contrast between the two distinct halves of the film can seem a little jarring, Five Easy Pieces is an engaging drama which has lost nothing in the 40 years since its release and still offers a fine showcase of Jack Nicholson before he became a bloated self-parody.
