THE PLOT THUS FAR
The action was his life… without it he was dead.
WHAT WE THOUGHT
The Nickel Ride inhabits the talking-big-but-living-low world of organized crime at its lower strata. Also like Eddie Coyle, it takes as its subject the last-ditch schemes and final days of a loser. Jason Miller plays a small-time operator who has his fingers in a lot of shady pies: fixing fights, middle-manning hot merchandise, even hawking bail bonds. He seems to have a past as a grifter on the carny circuit, where he met his `cracker’ wife (Linda Haynes), a hoochie-coochie dancer.
Miller has secured an old commercial site with bays into which trucks can disgorge their hijacked merchandise; he hopes it will become an irresistible depot for stowing contraband. But he keeps getting the runaround from his superior, John Hillerman. Next emerges a `Cadillac cowboy’ (Bo Hopkins) who Miller comes to believe has been engaged to kill him. But he falls back on the swagger and bluster that have turned him into a local hero, postures that cut little ice in the ever more impersonal and cutthroat world of crime gone corporate.
Surreal and dark thriller that has a number of fine twists and turns in it but it’s obvious from the start that the dye was cast and Cooper was to become history by the time the movie ends. There were a number of off-beat moments in the film that didn’t seem to make much sense with a dream sequence involving Turner at Cooper’s country home that to me came across like an alternate ending that was left in the movie by its director by mistake.
The DVD comes with a trailer as its sole special feature. The A/V Quality is pretty strong for an older flick, but it doesn’t really matter. I’m just enjoying how Shout is finding these old crime movies and releasing them to DVD. Amazing stuff and it makes the world a better place to have it out there. Plus, you get to see Jason Miller at the top of his game. I’d recommend a purchase.
RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW!
