MOVIE REVIEWS : Shades of the ‘60s in ‘Roadside Prophets’

Road movies are usually wayward and hang-loose but “Roadside Prophets” (NuWilshire) is beyond the pale. Written and directed by Abbe Wool, who co-scripted Alex Cox’s “Sid and Nancy,” it’s a desultory snooze about two spaced-out bikers. Joe (John Doe, co-founder of the band X) is a working-class ‘60s refugee on a mission to bury his friend’s ashes in some unspecified place in Nevada called El Dorado. (The friend is electrocuted in a video game accident.) On the road, he hooks up with Sam (Adam Horovitz, founder of the Beastie Boys rap band), a nerdy roustabout who will only sleep in rooms provided by Motel 9, a cheapjack chain.

There may have been a good spooky-satiric idea in a movie about two friends who cross a landscape dotted only with ‘60s dropouts. But it wouldn’t hurt to have a script, a director, a few decent actors, a budget. John Cusack has a wacko cameo playing a glutton who crams, in extreme close-up, immense amounts of greasy diner food into his gaping maw. Arlo Guthrie turns up in a raggedy cameo; so does David Carradine (who, in better days, once played Woody Guthrie) and Timothy Leary, playing a farmer.

“What you want to be on the lookout for is transcendent reality,” says Leary in the film, and who can disagree? For those who doubted it, the reality of “Roadside Prophets” (rated R for language) is that the ‘60s are officially dead.

‘Roadside Prophets’

John Doe: Joe Mosely

Adam Horovitz: Sam

Jennifer Balgobin: Labia Mirage

A Fine Line Features presentation. Director Abbe Wool. Producers Peter McCarthy, David Swinson. Executive producer Nancy Israel. Screenplay by Abbe Wool. Cinematographer Tom Richmond. Editor Nancy Richardson. Costumes Prudence Moriarty. Music Pray for Rain. Production design J. Rae Fox. Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (language).