In this desert-scorched counterculture classic, Barry Newman is a dropout from society who becomes a cult hero to the hippies, freaks, drugheads, crazies, and naked girls on motorcycles when he speeds non-stop from Colorado to California over a weekend to deliver a 1970 Dodge Challenger. His name is Kowalski (just Kowalski) and police in three states try to pull him over, but he outwits and outmaneuvers them every time. No one knows what’s on Kowalski’s mind. He’s seen tragedy and he doesn’t talk much. He just drives. And takes speed. His only companion on his existential journey is Super Soul (Cleavon Little), a radio DJ who has one-sided conversations with Kowalski over the public airwaves and uses an illegal police radio to warn him about trouble ahead. It all adds up to one of the great road movies, enigmatic and haunting, a little hippie-dippy sometimes, but an essential piece of early 70s bitterness.