This film is the epitome of what made 70's Hollywood films so unique. It's got a huge star, but the star is Jack Nicholson, who is not what any other decade would throw up as a star. It also ambles fairly non-eventfully from beginning to end, and nobody learns any big lessons or becomes a radically different person, and the world is shown to be fairly unfair, but what are you going to do?
Well, it's perhaps unfair to say that it's uneventful - it's more realistic, in that the things that do happen seem like they really might. Nicholson plays Buddusky (AKA "Badass") a sailor who is currently between "orders," who is sent, along with another sailor, Mulhall (AKA "Mule") (played by the excellent
Otis Young, who should've been everywhere, but mostly seems to have had bit parts in TV) is sent on a "detail" (which seems to mean an odd job between missions at sea) to take a young sailor to prison for a sentence of 8 years, with dishonorable discharge for having attempted to steal $40 from a for-polio charity box. His penalty is particularly draconian because the charity is the pet project of the wife of the "big man" on base. Initially Buddusky plans to make it a super-quick trip to Portsmouth (where the prison is) from wherever they start (somewhere down South, but it's cold even there - another sign that this is a 70's film is that everything is dreary) so that lots of money will be left over for a leisurely spree for him and Mule after they deposit the kid, but the kid (played by a 24-year-old Randy Quaid, whose puffy cheeks make him look sufficiently juvenile to pass for the 18 years old his character (Meadows) is supposed to be,
is so pathetic (he can't help himself stealing, and doesn't even need most of the things he lifts) that they take pity on him and try to show him a good time along the way. They stop off in Washington and New York, they get into fights, Buddusky flashes his gun at a bigoted bar man, they discover new-age chanting (featuring Gilda Radner in a miniscule part), fail to get lucky (featuring Nancy Allen in a slightly bigger part), get wasted, sleep in crappy motels, try out the best sausage sandwiches in the world
take Meadows to a prostitute (featuring Carol Kane in a slightly bigger part still)
and then end up dropping him off in prison slightly the worse for wear as he tries to do a runner at the last minute. And that's the movie. Hard to believe it was written by Robert "Chinatown" Townes, except that afterwards you realize how good it was by how much you think about it. And Jack Nicholson is a star simply because you never for a second doubt the character and you can't take your eyes off him. It's also sad
how Randy Quaid ended up, because he's also a natural goofball and completely believable as a sad-sack fuck up kid. (A poignant scene is when Buddusky insists they take Meadows to visit him Mom, but she isn't there, but they get a glimpse inside her house of a complete tip, with bottles scattered everywhere.) But Buddusky and Mule aren't that much better, at least from us "normies'" point of view, because they're self-confessed Navy "lifers" (Nicholson was already in his mid-30s when he made this, which makes him in his 80's now!) and it becomes clear that they couldn't function in the wider world without the structure that the Navy provides. So what do we take away from this? You tell me. All I know is that it couldn't've been made in the '60s because of the copious use of "motherfucker" and it certainly wouldn't be allowed to end as it does today. I mean, Buddusky basically says to Mule that Meadows isn't going to make it in prison (because Marines are just sadistic motherfuckers) but, instead of them all running away, or Buddusky and Mule endangering their Navy careers out of empathy and letting Meadows make a break for it, they turn him in and walk off, muttering. But that, of course, is what makes it great.
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