A standout cult classic which emerged from beneath the 70s New Hollywood era, under-utilised director Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop is the definitive road movie all others try to approximate. Lacking the pretension present in much existential cinematic exposition, this is movie-making as accessible as it is enigmatic. And damn if I wasn’t excited seeing this in all its beautiful big-screen glory!

Two seldom-spoken friends drive from town to town in a life which revolves around their car – a faded black, home-worked 55 Chevy. They race to make money to live and don’t seem to need much else but the simplicity of the road and the countryside through which they travel. Along their journey they pick up a girl and encounter another (lone) driver who draws them into a cross-continent challenge; racing along, the now famous, Route 66 interstate highway with the pink slip (title) of their respective cars as the prize. This nothing plot is at once arbitrary and vital. The ensuing race never actually finishes and the point becomes the journey itself and the contrast of the characters who are taking it.

A brooding, dark-haired James Taylor as “The Driver” – with his dark looks and surliness – alongside Dennis Wilson’s even-tempered blond “Mechanic” – all ‘take life as it comes’ pragmatism – join with the Warren Oates’ ageing, tale-spinning “GTO” and the never-ending American landscape to provide the character framework for a filmic exploration of differing philosophical approaches to life. The two cars mirror their human compatriots: Driver & Mechanic’s 55 Chevy is as plain, stripped back and powerfully assured as GTO’s brand new bright yellow Pontiac is showy and attention seeking. Whereas the Driver & Mechanic are a self-contained unit, GTO is uncomfortable in his own skin and a compulsive talker. These characters form an unlikely connection around their need to journey, and around “The Girl” who disrupts their patterns of relating, and in whom they each invest some emotional currency before she disappears into the distance on the back of an unknown motorcycle.

Hellman’s mastery is in his economy: of dialogue, of colour and action, of people and place. He uses physical location as a character, building mood and flow essential to the movie as purposefully and effectively as he does with the actors. The sparse dialogue highlights the use to which this small amount is put. Even the awkward delivery of a few of the lines doesn’t so much distract as add to the pull of this film. Two-Lane Blacktop shows how this kind of restraint can help free the imagination in the viewer. Open skies, unending roads, dusty towns, parochial roadside diners, and fume-filled racetracks all work on the contrasting psyches of our quartet of protagonists and Hellman captures this without having to verbally explain it. By these means he directs our thoughts toward our grasp on our own (everyday) lives. What is it we are in search of? What are we trying to achieve? Will we find meaning there, or is the meaning to be found in our attempts? Whatever the answers, Two-Lane is a truly enjoyable way to have these questions posed and is a thrilling cinematic ride. See it if you haven’t. If you can catch it on the big screen, all the better.—Jacob Powell