Word: nicholsons
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...older sailors, Jack Nicholson and Otis Young, one white, one black, have a reputation for being "mean bastards," and are given the "detail" of escorting the prisoner up the coast to Ports-mouth Naval Prison in New Hampshire. Given a week and travel pay, they buckle their guns and catch the bus for Washington, handcuffing the thieving menace, who would be in tears if he weren't so sluggishly dreamy and scarred by the jeers of boot camp and adolescence...
...really quite normal (though the kid's eager response to the road to salvation--shades of Salinger's Franny and chicken sandwiches--is worth catching). Anyway as they enter the hip apartment the intentions of the older sailors are obvious, and they try to charm their way into bed. Nicholson's sailor--suavest man in the Navy, who fights without dropping his cigar--starts his come-on, talking earnestly about standing on the bridge with the sea around you and the wind coming at you and the romance of Bangkok--the woman is appalled. Young's sailor squirms unhappily under...
...THERE is fine, fine acting here. Jack Nicholson has received great praise for this role, which he deserves, although there's enough else there that he doesn't have to bail the movie out. Usually Nicholson is given time to build up momentum in a scene, but perhaps momentum is the wrong word, because he's more of a snapper...
...tragic hero on the beach at Atlantic City, or facing the wind with the wheelchaired old man, or impotent in Carnal Knowledge--what's so scary about the wreckage of Nicholson's empty lives is that you don't know when the ruins are going to detonate. His helpless rage has the tension and unpredictability of a madman...
NEAR THE END of The Last Detail they are in a wintry park and the kid sits hungover and breaks a stick in two with deep concentration. Later he stands sillhouetted in the distance and jerks the clockface Navy hand-signals he's learned from Nicholson in the last few days. When he gets out of jail he wants to be a signalman...