“Moving from southern California to the Pacific northwest, and from the raw, sunbelt life of oil and bowling to the old European tradition of family meals and Beethoven, Five Easy Pieces is a reworking of the contrast between civilization and energy. It is a fine example of those films that remain true to Western ideology, but which have transcended the old genre in terms of character study and social context. Indeed, the moody guy always looking for a ‘shoot-out' will get no more satisfying a confrontation than an argument with a fast-food waitress.
Just as in The King of Marvin Gardens (Rafelson's following film), where we are presented with alternative definitions of the artist (the confidence man vs. the solitary reflective), so Five Easy Pieces loves refined music and raw energy, and it is made in a way that can contain both. It has profound intimations of the unending challenge to Americans to go beyond European codes and show that energy can be art. Jack Nicholson is the man of two worlds, a good classical pianist and a natural oil-rigger, a member of the family but a drifter. Rafelson watches the two worlds with troubled affection, unable to choose one over the other, for they are both filled with silliness and virtue. But the movie as a whole honors the waywardness of the self-destructive guy ready to play a piano on a moving truck or screw Sally Struthers without sitting down. The most disconcerting thing about the picture is that this energy, so full of passion and humor, is also averse to responsibility. America is seen as the haven of those who must keep moving and changing.” David Thomson