The Hired Hand

Peter Fonda's follow-up to Easy Rider is a strange hybrid of a movie which starts off as a ghastly Western parody of Dennis Hopper's film, and then develops into something much more interesting: the last half is primarily concerned with the problems of a woman in a male-oriented Western culture, and Bloom captures the part magnificently, adding another dimension to the film by her performance. Oates, too, is as good as ever, and there are a few scenes between them of real subtlety and intelligence before the uninteresting mechanics of the plot reassert themselves.