Film Review
When it was first released in 1975 (having premiered the previous year
at the Cannes Film Festival),
The
Nickel Ride, Robert Mulligan's first foray into film noir
thriller territory, was ill-received both by the critics and by
audiences. To date, it remains one of the director's most
overlooked and underrated films although it was to prove influential in
the development of the neo-noir in subsequent years and is arguably one
of the finest examples of the genre to come out of an American film
studio. In common with its hardboiled 1940s counterpart,
The Nickel Ride offers a brooding
excursion into America's criminal underworld in which its central
protagonist, superbly portrayed by Jason Miller, is caught up in a
hopeless one-man war against an insuperable and ruthless
opponent. The story is familiar but Mulligan, one of the great
auteurs of American cinema, gives it a whole new spin.
What is perhaps most interesting about
The Nickel Ride is the way in which
it takes the familiar film noir motifs - the shadowy urban landscape,
the seedy gangster hangouts, the taciturn hero, etc. - and gives these
a recognisably modern (circa 1970s) makeover. Compared with the
stylisation of the classic American film noir thrillers of the 1940s,
The Nickel Ride has a scorching
realist quality, which persists even in its more surreal moments and
heightens its tangible aura of menace and impending doom. The
plot has little to commend it but the world that Mulligan conjures up,
one that vividly reflects the escalating paranoia of the main
protagonist, is both spellbinding and terrifying. The understated
mise-en-scène and lumbering pace of the first two-thirds of the
film create a false illusion of everyday normality that is savagely
torn to shreds in the dramatic final third when the perspective shifts
to that of a man anticipating his own brutal extinction.
The intense humanist streak that can be found in much of the director's
work (notably
To Kill A Mockingbird,
The Other and
The Man in the Moon) is also keenly
felt in the main protagonist's struggle with his conscience and his
desperate desire to live an ordinary life with the woman he
loves. In both its subject matter and style,
The Nickel Ride is much closer to
the existential French polar of the 1970s (specifically the
néo-polar) than to
comparable American thrillers of its time, and this could explain why
the film is more highly regarded (and better known) in France than in
the country where it was made. A meticulously crafted study in
alienation and fear,
The Nickel Ride
deserves to be considered a masterpiece, although its present obscurity
prevents it from being seen as such, which is a great shame.
© James Travers 2012
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Film Synopsis
Cooper is a middle-aged crime boss who successfully manages a number of
warehouses in Los Angeles which store stolen goods. He is a
popular figure on the street but he senses that his superiors are
beginning to doubt his suitability for his present role. When a
deal to expand his territory goes awry Cooper becomes convinced that he
is being set up for a fall. He escapes to a lakeside retreat with
his young wife Sarah but soon realises that a hitman is on his
tail. As paranoia takes him over, Cooper makes one last ditch
attempt to redeem himself. Unfortunately, his bosses have already
made up their mind that his usefulness is at an end...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.