Word: dern
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When the bad guys show up, things really fly to pieces. A grubby band of desperadoes led by Bruce Dern (in a splendidly bravura performance) want in on the drive and the profits. Duke shoos them off, but they skulk along behind the cows, waiting to make a move. When they do, Dern and Duke mix it up, and Dern finally gets the best of it. Aided by Nightlinger (Roscoe Lee Browne), the kids vow vengeance...
Nicholson manages a few nice touches. A scene of attempted rape late in the film conveys just the right feeling of psychotic tension. There is also a funny, if by now familiar, freak-out at the draft board and a shrewd performance by Bruce Dern as the basketball coach. Nicholson is not so fortunate with the other actors. Michael Margotta is scruffy and strident as the radical, William Tepper adenoidal in the role of the basketball player. Karen Black, playing the faculty wife, offers only a dreary variation on her basic Five Easy Pieces performance. It should be pointed...