I'm a big fan of Al Pacino. In fact, he used to be one of my favourite actors. I like Gene Hackman, too. Yet, somehow, I never even knew of this film's existence before I stumbled across it on TCM one evening many years ago. What's this? An early 1970s road movie with two of that generation's greatest actors? Why hadn't I seen this exactly? I'm glad I did stumble across it, since it remains something of an obscurity (although it was given a limited UK theatrical release in 2013). Peter Biskind, in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (his account of the New Hollywood) calls the film 'of secondary significance' and it was a box-office disappointment when it was released. But that doesn't take anything away from the film's quality or the wonderful oddball performances by Pacino and Hackman (who was reportedly very difficult to deal with on set). Incredibly, Hackman and Pacino's roles were once set to go to Bill Cosby and Jack Lemmon. That would have been a very different film indeed.
