Grubby Hero

By RICHARD CORLISS

THE BORDER

Directed by Tony Richardson

Screenplay by Deric Washburn, Walon Green and David Freeman

When, early in The Border, Jack Nicholson muses about how, back in California, "I liked feeding those ducks," one's first reaction is: "Feeding them what? Strychnine?" Nicholson's voice, with the silky menace of an FM disc jockey in the eighth circle of hell, has always suggested that nothing in the catalogue of experience is outrageous enough to change his inflection. Even when he goes shambly and manic (Goin' South, The Shining), Nicholson's voice and those tilde eyebrows give the impression that he knows more than his character, more than anyone need know. So it comes as a surprise that here he is playing a grubby hero, Eastwood-tough and Redford-bright. He is good at his job. He is kind to the underprivileged. And damned if he didn't like feeding those ducks.

Charlie (Nicholson) has come to El Paso, where he works as a border patrol man, at the urging of his ditsy wife Marcy (Valerie Perrine). This is a couple living on memories--of the days when he had all his hair and less gut and she had not yet become a middle-aged Barbie doll from overexposure to The Price Is Right. To finance all of Marcy's dear dreams, Charlie agrees to look the other way when illegal immigrants are spirited across the border to serve as the wetback-bone of Texas agriculture. It remains for Maria (Elpidia Carrillo), a comely Mexican who has lost her baby to an adoption ring, to bring out the best in him. When asked why he goes to near fatal lengths to help her, Charlie grunts: "I guess I gotta feel good about some thing I do."

Director Richardson is a long way from his old terrain of kitchen sinks (A Taste of Honey) and drawing rooms (Tom Jones). He allows a few implausibilities and submits the viewer to one winsome muchacho too many. But this is still a successful invasion of Peckinpah County, where bogus high life and a quick ugly death too often intersect. The film's mercuric feeling is heightened by Ric Waite's supple zooms, pans and tracking shots, and by the whining chords of Ry Cooder's music. As for Nicholson, he shows again that he can embody as much of the 20th century American male--sexy, psychotic, desperate, heroic--as any movie star today.

--By Richard Corliss

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