Drive, He Said (1971) Jack Nicholson's directorial debut arrived at the tail end of the pile of movies dealing with an America ripped asunder by its catastrophic participation in the Vietnam war.
All out civil war broke out along every societal divide imaginable.....black vs. white, young vs. old, liberal vs. conservative. And college campuses became ground zero battlegrounds for all these divisions, breeding a counterculture generation, some turning to active revolution......
"Drive He Said" bears a vague resemblance to the previous year's riotous, rambunctious "Getting Straight" a blunt comedy designed as a crowd pleaser and propelled by the manic energy of its star Elliot Gould. But as a director, Jack Nicholson's style duplicated his acting.....reflective, laid back, the view of a casual, cynical observer of life rather than an active participant.
Nicholson's film stands as a perfect example of the "New Cinema" that took the world by storm throughout the late 60's and well into the 70's......(until effectively stamped out by the rise of the "Jaws"-"Star Wars" juggernaut of blockbusters.)
Quirky, iconoclastic, often shapeless and random in structure and always contemptuous of authority figures, young audiences embraced the New Cinema as their very own.......and a whole new movie-going demographic was born.
Everything's in place here....most importantly, a college campus used as a display of American values beginning to buckle under the weight of the carnage, corruption and immorality of the Vietnam war.
The film centers around the school's basketball star Hector Bloom (William Tepper). Bloom enjoys his athletic skills only for his own personal satisfaction - he's not much of a team player, much to the aggravation of his blustering, micro-managing coach (Bruce Dern, in full splendid Dern-o-rama)
And living a star athlete's celebrated life while the country dissolves into chaos clearly weighs on Bloom. The rah-rah boosterism in the midst of a society coming undone only serves to isolate him from the teamwork his sport and coach demand of him.. And to add to his further angst, he continues a rocky affair with restless, unsettled faculty wife Olive (Karen Black)....in full view his professor friend, who also happens to be Olive's weary husband Richard (screenwriter Robert Towne).
For better or worse, the storyline, what there is of it, gets jump-started by the antics of Bloom's roommate Gabriel (Michael Margotta, rabid and bug-eyed), a furious, drug-fueled revolutionary facing imminent drafting and probable death in the Vietnam meat grinder. Gabriel's ongoing rage destroys what's left his sanity, leading to the film's vivid but overall pointless, disconnected set pieces.
None of what goes on in "Drive He Said" ever coalesces into anything solidly dramatic or ever fulfills its potential to grip an audience with its storyline and characters. True to the New Cinema, events unfold with no particular point or urgency.....you watch it all and make up your own mind about what you're seeing.
And don't wait for anything like a climax or closure of any kind. The film just stops.......which should come as no shock whatsoever to anyone who's sampled even a few 1970's independent films.
What truly disappoints here - you'd expect a film directed by an actor to feature professional, fine tuned performances. But Nicholson's handling of his two male leads is downright clumsy and amateurish. Tepper wanders through the film with blank, barely reactive line readings and Margotta's blatant overacting belongs in a Warner Brothers Loony Tune....or inevitably a loony bin.
By the time the film meandered into its final half hour, I'd already begun to loathe and despise Margotta's way-over-the-top showboating. When Nicholson has him streak across the campus (and I mean streak in that old original 1970's definition) the sight of Margotta's swingin' dick is still the most subtle part of his role, It's no great surprise either, since the film's already treated us to a full frontal locker room scene at its beginning.
Though filled to the brim with individual memorable moments and scenes, Nicholson never bothers to unify it all......he was content to let it all lie there and....well....let it be. A definite must for lovers and curators of 1970's 'golden age of indies', and at the very least a time capsule reminder of what useless, uncalled for 'forever wars' do to us all. 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)
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