DarthVoorhees 'Five Easy Pieces' is a tough one to review. It all comes down to excellent acting with material that is a little muddled. Nicholson is obviously very good in it as is Karen Black but I just felt the writing wasn't all that strong in how it developed it's characters. We get that Nicholson's character is trying to abandon his privilege because of tremendous guilt and yet his motivations are just too vague and inaccessible to the audience. Nicholson has a beautiful scene with his father who has suffered a stroke but otherwise the character is just too unlikeable especially given how much he abuses his girlfriend Rayette. In films with these subversive rebels we need a strong sense of what they are rebelling against. His home life just doesn't seem to be enough. It has two great performances but it was by and large kind of disappointing.

quinimdb "Five Easy Pieces" is a quiet, somber character study. It follows Bobby, a man that we first see working in an oil rig. He has a girlfriend that he can barely tolerate, but he clearly likes women and sex, and we see him cheating on his girlfriend. He is a hothead, and frequently has tantrums if he doesn't get what he wants, specifically in one scene in which he asks for lettuce and toast in a diner, but the waitress refuses, saying they don't serve that. He refuses to step down because he knows they have bread, and he continues to ask her in several different ways, until she kicks him out and he sweeps all of their glasses off of the table. Bobby is not a bad person, however. He has sympathy for others and it seems he can't seem to stand to see people suffer, even if he doesn't completely care about those people. It seems he can't stand responsibility and in one scene, he hops on the back of a storage truck with a piano while he is waiting in traffic simply because he can't stand to sit there in traffic. He wanders around for a while, not looking for anything in particular, until he ends up back with his girlfriend, who is now angry at him. This seems to be an accurate microcosm for the whole film. Bobby tries to run away from situations in which he knows that they will turn sour, which is why, as we find out, he ditched his rich family and a possible career with a piano there with them to work in an oil rig. But he's constantly moving away, because the real problem is himself. He visits his family because his father is on the verge of death, but when he sees the beautiful fiancé of his brother, he can't help but get with her. Of course she ends this before anybody finds out after a tantrum caused by a high class woman's negative comments to his brothers fiancé, as well as his sister having sex with Stoney. He clearly had hope that this could be something, but he is truly the one that ruined it for himself. He decides to leave with no goodbyes to anyone except for his sister (possibly the only member of his family he truly loves), who happens to catch him before he leaves. He is now stuck back with his girlfriend, the only person in the world who can put up with him, even though he doesn't want her to. He knows that there will be no escaping her, so when they stop at a gas station, Bobby discreetly gets into a truck hauling logs and tells the man that his car has burned up. He leaves his girlfriend to who knows where, but I believe he will only inevitably get himself into the situation again.

k-ellinger This movie is all about a man named Robert venturing out on his own and becoming an independent person. He defies what his parents want him to do and becomes a successful person. Once he discovers that his father is very sick, he decides to go back to his family with his girlfriend and try to fix the relationship that he had with them. They quickly discover that it isn't as easy as they thought it would be. He must deal with his struggles from his past while focusing on the current situation that is going on. The audience feels nothing but hope and optimism for him that he'll be able to fix things with his family and help his father in any way that he can.

George Wright The character of Robert "Bobby" Dupea, performed brilliantly by Jack Nicholson, is the focus of this movie. Dupea is a character at a point in his life where he does not fit into either of two separate worlds, one is a world where he is free and the other where he is tied to his family's life of isolation, tradition and detachment. He was born with all the advantages others would envy, which he rejects for a life that his family no doubt feels is below his talents. When the show opens Bobby is living and working in an oil drilling region in Southern California. His partner is a café server named Rayette, performed by Karen Black. In that world, he hangs out with co-workers Elton and his family, where they booze, attend wild parties, go bowling and watch television. It's not a life that Bobby was born into but he can have fun with the women he seems to easily attract and not be tied down to the rigid life he knew growing up in a family of music artists. Bobby takes out his frustration on Rayette, who represents all the blue collar boredom he resents in his adopted life away from his own buttoned-up family. They have a rocky relationship in a small house where Rayette listens to country music, probably the last thing Bobby wants to listen to. When he meets up with his sister in Los Angeles, he finds out that his father has suffered two stokes. Partita, the sister, tells him to go home for a final visit.The movie then switches to an island in Puget Sound, near Seattle, where his family of professional musicians resides. His sister Partita, an accomplished pianist, lives there with the ailing father and brother Carl, played by Ralph Waite, a pleasant enough man but very stiff in the horse collar he has to wear as the result of an accident that has curtailed his career as a violinist. The whole family is stiff by Bobby's standards with the exception of his brother's fiancée Catherine, played by Susan Anspatch. Catherine is a free spirit like Bobby, who is not totally at ease in the family's isolated world in Puget Sound. Bobby charms her when he shows his talent on the piano, playing Chopin. His family's island home is presented as a dark, damp, dreary place in the movie, which fits the mood. People living here must take a ferry to the "mainland". When Rayette is here, she is like a fish out of water. A telling scene near the end with a group of family friends brings her discomfort into focus; in this encounter, Bobby shows his devotion to Raylene but the ending shows Bobby is not ready to find a direction to his life. This is a powerful movie about family, freedom, social class, and trying to find purpose in life.