Word: goins
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...GOIN' SOUTH Directed by Jack Nicholson...
...almost any movie he wants. He can requisition any Hollywood blockbuster that captures his fancy; he can fly off to Europe and make metaphysical thrillers with Antonioni. This time around he has rejected both of these traditional options, choosing instead to direct himself in a comic western romance called Goin' South. It is a peculiar choice. Goin' South is not likely to be a commercial smash, but neither is it artistically ambitious. The film is just a small inconsequential frolic: always eccentric, sometimes wonderful, and never pretentious. It works-but only if one doesn't insist that...
...actor's motive for making this movie is not impossible to figure out. Goin' South does provide him with the funniest -and possibly the most enjoyable-role he's ever had. Henry Moon, the film's Texas outlaw hero, can take his place alongside Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou, John Wayne in True Grit and Jason Robards in The Ballad of Cable Hogue. A good-hearted rogue with slovenly personal habits, Moon is the essence of frontier vulgarity. He gobbles meals in a single bite, guzzles booze as if it were mother's milk...
...Goin' South's script, set just after the Civil War, is essentially an extended two-character sketch. The other role is Julia Tate (Mary Steenburgen), a frigid young spinster whose odd habits include hanging up chairs on wall hooks. Julia weds Moon in a marriage of convenience: she needs someone to work her unsuccessful gold mine, while he needs a respectable wife to shield him from the law. The thin story traces the predictable warming up of their relationship. Pretty soon the film becomes a string of uneven set pieces, the best of which suggest Nichols...
...goin' out today," he says. "It's too wet out for this leg. I'm going to fast, and read my Bible...