8.5/10
I re-watched this last night as I'm slowly going through the America Lost and Found: The BBS Story box set, and it had a much greater impact on me compared to when I first saw it a couple of years ago. I remember not particularly liking it, but now I realize it's more that Five Easy Pieces just isn't an especially enjoyable movie to watch - it's so full of tension it knots your stomach and its protagonist is downright unlikeable. I was more impressed than ever by Jack Nicholson's performance...disaffected, apathetic, seething with an anger that's only a word away from boiling over...it's hardly a "forgotten" role in Nicholson's career but it's one that I think deserves a lot more credit. The other thing I like about the movie is the way it refuses to give us an easy explanation for Nicholson's character's anger - we're left with a feeling that it's something more, or something just beyond the edges of the frame that's being withheld from us. It's a tough feeling for a filmmaker to stir up in a viewer and I think it was executed brilliantly here.
I watched it just after re-watching one of my favorite movies, Easy Rider, and while both movies deal in similar sentiments, Easy Rider is absolute paradise to watch in comparison.
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