You know you're in the land of Deep Meaning when the characters are defined instead of named in the credit crawl. I recall the hype surrounding the movie's release. Audiences were yearning for a follow-up to the provocatively themed Easy Rider, something equally thoughtful about America's cultural malaise. But whereas the Fonda film manages to both entertain and reveal, Hellman's manages only a strained seriousness that overworks to the point of tedium. The Road has long been a metaphor for exploring life in America. But here we get a series of clichés about emptiness and alienation surrounding and including the ciphers that are the three main characters, and little else. <br /><br />Now, the film apparently wants to use these existential poses and narrow focus to say something Deep about America or, if not America, at least about something. There are, of course, allusive films that do invite a deeper probing. The trouble here is that Hellman's style is simply too minimalist to reach beyond it's own cramped narrative to a broader social or cultural context that would provide the kind of meaning the movie's apparently reaching for. As a result, the film ends ironically as a kind of character study of three empty characters, and as a Rohrschach test for those intrigued by style over substance. Two Lane may be a cult film to many, especially to the Warren Oates fan club and to those who confuse seriousness with results. But there's a reason Easy Rider still defines the time period, while Two Lane has become grist for a "What Does It Mean" study group. It's best to keep in mind that sometimes less really does add up to not enough.