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Movies / On DVD / Five Easy Pieces
Five Easy Pieces

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Five Easy Pieces (1970)

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Reviews Counted:27

Fresh:22

Rotten:5

Average Rating:8.1/10

Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: FIVE EASY PIECES is one of the most notable collaborations between Jack Nicholson and director Bob Rafelson, with Nicholson in an outstanding performance as Bobby Dupea. In the film, Rafelson and... FIVE EASY PIECES is one of the most notable collaborations between Jack Nicholson and director Bob Rafelson, with Nicholson in an outstanding performance as Bobby Dupea. In the film, Rafelson and Nicholson capture the difficult, awkward life of a gifted man who hasn't discovered a way to fully express his talent or found his place in the world--and maybe never will. Bobby is a classic misfit--disillusioned about being a musician, unhappy as an oil rigger, and unable to make a commitment to his girlfriend, Rayette, who hopes for marriage. When he visits his family home on Puget Sound after a long absence, things don't get better. Bobby hates the repressive atmosphere: his brother is unbearable, his father can't speak, and his sister is involved with his father's supercilious male nurse. When Bobby sets his sights on his brother's fiancée, Catherine Van Ost (movingly played by the beautiful Susan Anspach), things seem to be getting better--that is, until Rayette arrives and Bobby realizes he is caught in a collision between his two lives. The film features characteristically gorgeous cinematography from Laszlo Kovaks and a soundtrack that skillfully offsets Tammy Wynette with Chopin. FIVE EASY PIECES is a riveting American story about a former musical ingénue whose gift becomes a burden to him as he grapples with the implications of his choices in work, relationships, and family. [More]

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Sally Struthers

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Sally Struthers, Billy "Green" Bush, Fannie Flagg, Marlena MacGuire, Richard Stahl, Lois Smith, Helena Kallianiotes, Toni Basil, John Ryan, Lorna Thayer, Ralph Waite, William Challee, Irene Dailey

Director: Bob Rafelson

Director: Bob Rafelson
Screenwriter: Bob Rafelson, Adrien Joyce
Producer: Richard Wechsler

[See More Credits]

Reviews for Five Easy Pieces

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Reviews
Tomatometer Critic Review Category
tomato

Jack Nicholson shines in the film that helped cement his reputation as one of the finest actors of his generation.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 26 2007 09:48 PM

Channel 4 Film

tomato

The result is less a story and more a collection of incidents and character studies, all of which inform each other and extend our understanding of Nicholson's mode of survival: flight.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jan., 26 2006 03:16 AM

Time Out

tomato
A

Emanuel Levy

A key American film of its era, Bob Rafelson's moody, character-driven tale of an upper-middle class dropout established Jack Nicholson as the foremost actor of his generation in articulating the values of the new generation.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Feb., 26 2008 11:11 AM

EmanuelLevy.Com

tomato
91/100

Philip Martin

Bobby can be seen as spiritual descendant of Melville's scrivener Bartleby, preferring not to participate in a world to which he doesn't subscribe.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Dec., 07 2007 04:30 AM

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

tomato
4/4

This episodic character study is one of the key American films of its era.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 26 2007 09:47 PM

TV Guide's Movie Guide

tomato

Variety Staff

The film's nervewracking quality is consistent with its content. Nicholson's performance is a remarkably varied and daring exploration of a complex character, equally convincing in its manic and sober aspects.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 26 2007 09:46 PM

Variety

splat

Dave Kehr

The film embraces proletarian chic but still gets its laughs by abusing waitresses.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 26 2007 09:44 PM

Chicago Reader

tomato
4/4

Phil Villarreal

Just give the guy a piece of toast.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Mar., 18 2007 10:50 PM

Arizona Daily Star

tomato
5/5

Cole Smithey

No review available.

comment Comment | Apr., 06 2006 05:02 PM

ColeSmithey.com

tomato
4/5

Chuck O'Leary

No review available.

comment Comment | Sep., 27 2005 10:45 PM

Fantastica Daily

tomato
4/5

Michael Szymanski

No review available.

comment Comment | Sep., 23 2005 09:10 PM

International Press Academy

tomato
5/5

Steve Crum

Hold that sandwich! A film representing its time, and a classic.

comment Comment | Oct., 15 2004 06:56 PM

Kansas City Kansan

tomato
3.5/4

Jeffrey M. Anderson

It hasn't aged as well as some of its 1970s counterparts, but it's still a heartbreaking film and a minor classic.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jun., 21 2004 08:15 AM

Combustible Celluloid

tomato
5/5

Bill Chambers

No review available.

comment Comment | Jan., 12 2004 05:38 PM

Film Freak Central

tomato
4/5

Mark Palermo

No review available.

comment Comment | Nov., 22 2003 03:07 PM

Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

tomato
5/5

Carol Cling

No review available.

comment Comment | Oct., 03 2003 11:42 AM

Las Vegas Review-Journal

splat
2.5/5

Roger Greenspun

Rafelson is expert at supporting this movement, and the film proceeds from scene to scene with a quiet competent modernism that bespeaks quality, but that more often begs than provides expression.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | May., 21 2003 05:03 PM

New York Times

splat
2/5

Alex Sandell

I expected a lot more from this film. It's basically a rambling boredom piece.

comment Comment | Apr., 30 2003 12:46 AM

Juicy Cerebellum

tomato
4/4

Roger Ebert

We'd had a revelation. This was the direction American movies should take: Into idiosyncratic characters, into dialogue with an ear for the vulgar and the literate, into a plot free to surprise us about the characters, into an existential ending.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Mar., 25 2003 05:03 PM

Chicago Sun-Times

tomato
4/5

Bob Bloom

Nicholson at his angry, young man peak. Cynical, anti-authoritarian drama.

comment Comment | Mar., 21 2003 10:41 AM

Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN)

 
 
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