Early glory days all ‘round for Hal Ashby, Robert Towne, Michael Chapman & Jack Nicholson: helming, scripting, lighting-for-grain, acting his pants off in a foul-mouthed three-hander about a couple of navy ‘lifers’ taking a swabby to jail for an undeserved 8-yr stint. With five days (and per diem to match) to get him there, Nicholson & fellow officer Otis Young figure they can haul young sailor Randy Quaid straight up to Portsmouth and have the rest of the time to fuck around on their way back to Norfolk. But they take pity on their babe-in-the-woods charge and end up traveling the long way to prison: drinking, partying, fighting a bartender & a few Marines (they hate them Marines!), stopping at home, and getting the kid laid. A ribald sentimental education for both kid and seen-it-all ‘lifers.’ Nicholson is exceptional here, tying crowd-pleasing mannerisms & tics to his character’s shrinking expectations. If anything, the film plays better now than it did on release.
DOUBLE-BILL: Towne & Nicholson switched genres next year for CHINATOWN/’74.
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