Director: Monte Hellman
Writer: Jack Nicholson, based on a story by Fred Roos and Monte Hellman
Stars: Dewey Mann, Fay Spain and Jack Nicholson
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Index: The First Thirty.
This is not a good movie. Let me get that out there right away. However, it’s an interesting movie, the first of four that Jack Nicholson did for director Monte Hellman and the first of a pair shot back to back in the Philippines. It’s also a thoroughly enjoyable movie with an odd charm to it. It’s much more enjoyable than it really has any right to be.
That’s because it’s a cheap pulp flick with an over-complex story built on no background at all and which is reliant on its characters to do a whole lot of things that aren’t believable. It ought to suck royally. However, it grabbed me early and it kept me all the way, even while I acknowledged a host of problems as it went.
For a start, I have no idea where we are and I’m not sure anyone ever tells us. All we know is that it’s a city and a bunch of people in a car watch another man arrive at the docks by taxi, surreptitiously take something from a man on a boat and then leave in another taxi.
They’re interesting characters, at least. The three in the car include a young driver, exotic muscle and a beautiful woman. I recognise the muscle as Vic Diaz, a memorable villain in a lot of memorable Filipino movies. He channels his best Peter Lorre for this one.
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