Down the Block

By J. C.

THE NICKEL RIDE

Directed by ROBERT MULLIGAN Screenplay by ERIC ROTH

Everyone on the street calls Cooper the "key man" because he carries a great many around on a large ring and because he seems to be at the very center of all the action. His is, in any case, a poor fiefdom, a small hunk of downtown territory in an unnamed city that is clearly Los Angeles. Cooper holds court in bars, keeps a small, dusty office in which even the sunlight is encrusted. He is a fixer and a mover: he puts up bail bond, regulates the steady flow of petty crime in the neighborhood. Cooper also has eyes to expand his holdings on behalf of some higher-ups and take over a whole block of abandoned warehouses, where hijacked goods can be left to cool.

The movie catches very well the bustling claustrophobia of small-time crime. Cooper, his underlings, even the representatives of the higher echelons, all look like creatures in an ant farm, moving fast, even over the bodies of others, constructing and rebuilding a closed world. There is always danger of betrayal in this life. Cooper has mastered enough subtleties of street intrigue to start feeling threatened by them. The deal for the warehouse block is not going well. He knows that his future and probably his life depend on what is termed "the successful completion of negotiations."

Right Tone. The people above Cooper all talk in phrases like that, in a sort of euphemistic, expense-account patois that manages to be placating and threatening at the same time. Screenwriter Roth's dialogue has just the right tone of misdirected menace, although what service it performs remains rather unclear. Director Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird, Summer of '42) creates a muffled texture of perennial dusk, and stages some fine set pieces (like a good-humored birthday party that the street citizens give Cooper). But, like Roth, he mistakes obliquity for essence. The Nickel Ride is a film of well-turned surfaces whose terse and moody lines dress up, but do not disguise, a shady frame. This is after all another installment in that sadly ongoing saga of contemporary man fighting to stay alive in a world he helped make but no longer can quite control. Cooper carries a lot of keys to doors that have stopped opening. Mulligan and Roth make a great show of unlocking doors that have been ajar for a long time.

Jason Miller stars as Cooper, and that is not a great deal of help. Miller's face is gouged by deep melancholy, but his hands wave about with abandon. He will begin to describe an elaborate ges ture, then pull his hand in close to his body. The effect is that of a man who has hailed a cab and then decided to walk home.

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