I'm a bit under the weather, so I was able to leave work early yesterday and take Robert Mulligan's
The Nickle Ride (1974). Those unfamiliar with Mulligan's filmography (
To Kill A Mockingbird (1962),
The Other (1972)), he's a director who never made the same movie twice; so I was excited to see his contribution to the crime/neo-noir genre with
The Nickle Ride. A film that I think is unfairly neglected,
The Nickle Ride captures the economic downturn of the 1970s (similarly how
Killing Them Softly (2012) captures the economic disaster of the "Great Recession") and is as bleak and moody as one of its crime movie contemporaries:
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973).
Starring Jason Miller as "Key Man" Cooper, whose role is never explicitly explained to the audience, but seems to be the combination of underworld fixer and high end fence, is in the middle of a deal of securing a large amount of warehouses to keep stolen goods in. The problem is that the cop on the mob's payroll who he needs protection from is skittish about the deal, testing the patience of the mob boss that Cooper works for.
Don't be misled, this isn't a gangster movie (per se), if anything it's a movie about a high stakes real estate deal that just happens to take place in the underworld. Miller's performance is a great slow burner, his character continuously worn down by the stresses that accompany this deal. Grossly overlooked is Linda Haynes' performance as Cooper's girlfriend, Sarah, who does the best her with the character written for her.
I recommend
The Nickle Ride to anyone who's a fan of the crime/gangster/neo-noir genre. It may not be a movie that you'll watch multiple times, but it's one that you won't regret checking out. Unfortunately,
The Nickle Ride isn't available for streaming anywhere that I know of, and isn't even available on Netflix by mail, but only on a double feature DVD that contains
The Nickle Ride and the oddly named
99 and 44/100% Dead (1974).
RATING: