JASON MILLER POSSESSES 'THE NICKEL RIDE' WITH LINDA HAYNES

year: 1974 cast: Jason Miller, John Hillerman, Linda Haynes, Bo Hopkins

In THE NICKEL RIDE, wherein a convoluted set-up is experienced through random wandering conversations with blue collar workers, building managers, street dwellers, and a boxer asked to take a fall, the main actor, an ever-intense Jason Miller, who played the buried lead in THE EXORCIST, is in some big trouble, and there's a feeling of walking into a movie after missing the first twenty minutes...

Overall Rating: **1/2

Throughout this dialogue-driven Neo Neor with a fantastic title in THE NICKEL RIDE, be careful when reading the plot summary... An intriguing tale about a criminal wearing a skeleton key around his neck, controlling what's called "The Block," a literal boulevard of warehouses where mobsters keep their, you know, goods; one particular new client is hesitant to join-in and Miller's ultra-serious boss, played by a 70's eclectic character-actor (in CHINATOWN the same year) who would gain fame a decade later as Tom Selleck's uppity caretaker, Higgins, on MAGNUM P.I., John Hillerman has, for mysterious reasons, no logical reason not to trust the likable neighborhood chief, Miller's Cooper... 

At least not the person we got to know thus far, showing absolutely no flaws whilst completely beloved by the neighborhood... and that's exactly what we seemed to have missed, including the important aspect of how this man's calculating job works in the first place, taking us through a rushed introduction with a continuing score sounding like surreal nightmare carnival music (composer Dave Grusin fared a lot better with the similar-in-plot neo-noir THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE)...

Linda Haynes

And with a gorgeous, future ROLLING THUNDER ingenue Linda Haynes as Sarah, stubbornly hanging around to our put-upon hero's chagrin; like Charles Bronson in that same year's more entertaining and action-packed MR. MAJESTYK, the two leads venture to a hidden woodsy cabin (albeit for much different reasons), unsuccessfully hiding away from one of the most intentionally annoying hit-men in cinema history: that being the otherwise superb Bo Hopkins as a talkative yet subtle hillbilly assassin, a cross between MIDNIGHT COWBOY and COLUMBO, whose best scene occurs during a dream, which really works in how Miller wakes up from it – eerie and edgy in one of director Robert Mulligan's best shot scenes... 

And, after escaping from Hopkins following a semi-suspenseful yet overlong exterior melodrama, Hillerman, in the midst of a noisy big-wig city party crashed by his mellow yet extremely perturbed and vengeful employee, explains the situation (as best he can but not enough to clear up the convoluted plot-line) to Cooper... 

Of course that snarky albatross, Hopkins, still needs to be taken out, for eternity so, overall, with such an incredible cast on board (including a potentially good but ultimately wasted Victor French), THE NICKEL RIDE is a damn shame since Jason Miller, a swarthy "student" of the James Dean meets Marlon Brando style of brooding Method Actor spontaneity... and who brought a uniquely urban intensity, reaching beyond the horror genre in William Friedkin's THE EXORCIST... is stuck here without a coherent plot to attempt displaying what he has (or could have had) to offer audiences after his previous years' big demonic break.

Jason Miller in THE NICKEL RIDE

Bo Hopkins in THE NICKEL RIDE