Tracks

Throughout this movie, the audience wonders whether Dennis Hopper is dreaming, going crazy or is just simply dead from the start. All these scenarios are possible as the movie keeps you guessing what is real and what is imaginary. What makes Tracks a movie worth watching and revisiting is the intentional filming style of Henry Jaglom. Much of the story deliberately makes you question if the scenes are out of place and made to feel confusing. Overall, everything about this story is awkward and hard to watch. Much like returning home from Vietnam, the feeling was mutual for many of its soldiers.

Weird flick, a little Altman-esque in terms of rambling dialogue that starts and stops off-screen sometimes. Also a lot of PTSD scenes, can't always tell what's real and what's in the lead character's mind. My friend says he found it reminiscent of Cassavetes. I found Dennis Hopper's performance very compelling and even heartbreaking. Also helps me to understand my dad's generation (Boomers). Still relevant for war vets today. Worth a watch.

This movie started out so wonderfully intriguing....and then fell apart so awfully hard. It was downright painful for me to watch this movie die...I had such hopes for it. All these characters riding on a train...all their lives intertwined for the short journey...people with Secrets...simultaneous conversations recorded so spontaneously I felt like I was eavesdropping. Scenes of sexual intimacy that made me feel like a voyeur...Dennis Hopper running through the train completely naked, making me turn my head away like a startled passenger... The more I think about it, the angrier I get...surely someone could have rewritten the last half of the script and turned this film into something much, much better. As it is, I just watch my favorite scenes from the first half of the movie over & over again....the conversations with Dean Stockwell are priceless. (And hey, isn't he wearing the same pair of tennis shoes in Paris, Texas?).

Much has been written about Dennis Hopper's off screen "adventures" during his exile from mainstream Hollywood in the 1970s, but the wild stories of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll overshadow the fact that when he WAS allowed in front of a camera he almost always gave brave, and emotionally open performances. The little seen 'Tracks' is a case in point.

Hopper plays a soldier from Vietnam on a mission to escort the coffin of a fellow soldier back to the United States. He does this by traveling by train, hence the title. While on the journey he interacts with the other passengers, who include a mysterious hipster (Dean Stockwell), and a beautiful young college student (Taryn Power). He is smitten by the young girl, and wrestling with his shyness and uncertainty, attempts to develop a relationship with her. He is torn between his desire, his duty, the memories of the war, and of his childhood, and finds himself walking the line between sanity and madness. He must battle his demons and fight against hallucinations that plague him.

'Tracks' features many fine, naturalistic performances from the supporting cast. The dialogue as a whole feels improvised, and Hopper particularly excels at this. Stockwell also impresses, and the few scenes between the two are fresh and memorable. 'Tracks' is a strong example of intelligent, uncliched 1970s film making, and should appeal to fans of Wenders 'The American Friend' (another strong Hopper role from this period), 'The King Of Marvin Gardens', 'Fingers', 'Scarecrow', 'The Last Detail', and other unfairly neglected character studies from this exciting era. This movie has been overlooked for too long! It's time to rescue it from obscurity.

I was slightly perplexed that most of the other people who commented on this classic Dennis Hopper film either didn't understand the ending, or thought the ending was stupid. It's very clear to me.

This whole film is nothing more than a symbolic train ride to hell. The 1940s World War II-era soundtrack is a backdrop for a "popular" war. A war where the entire nation banded together to serve and defend their country. Dennis Hopper's character is a baby-boomer brought up with the backdrop of World War II, a war of honor. His "war" is the complete opposite; shunned and protested. He keeps constantly playing the old time music to help him reinforce his beliefs that his service in Viet-Nam was the good and decent thing to do. The people on the train are symbols of our nation; wrapped up in every their everyday lives, totally unconcerned or pre-occupied with the war which was so far away. The ending is a brutal statement that the only way the public could come to grips with the experiences with the combat veterans was to bring the horrors of the war back home. Tracks is an out-standing, yet controversial, and highly symbolic view on the horrors of the Viet-Nam War. Seems to me that this movie couldn't be re-made today; only updating it to the war in Iraq. How sad that some 30 years later, Tracks is still not an out-dated film about the horrors of war, and the public's indifference to the suffering of the soldiers fighting over there.