Balding, tubby and prone to hammy acting. Just so cool and so watchable. Nobody does it like Jack! I have also revisited Batman and Wolf as part of this mini-season. What a blast!

Carnal Knowledge (1971)

Mike Nichols directs Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel and Candice Bergen in this dark drama chronicling the lifelong sexual development of two men who meet and become friends in college.

A difficult work of cinema. Two reprehensible men treat women like objects and each other like shit over their entire adulthood. The scenes feel disconnected, cold and patience testing. In many ways Nichols straight faced satire of the sexual revolution, as seen from the view point of those who benefited the most without changing at all, is an abrasive corrupting watch. Jack’s dystopian delivery of the “Ballbusters on Parade” slideshow of past conquests is the stand out moment.

7

The Departed (2006)

Martin Scorsese directs Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson in this undercover thriller where both the cops and gangsters deeply embed moles into their rival organisations.

Scorsese going back to the crime flick well finally bagged him an Oscar. This sprawling bad taste remake of the tight Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs is a fascinating grab bag of moments and performances. Jack is full fat OTT. There’s a lot of implied baggage about sexual impotency. Marky Mark gives us his one truly fantastic acting turn as the foul mouthed aggressive cop who handles DiCaprio’s drowning undercover. Yeah… there are way too many rat and mole reveals in the final act but this ain’t much concerned with restraint or subtlety. Scorsese’s punk instincts and joy at making one for them (however the fuck he likes) shines through.

9

The Pledge (2001)

Sean Penn directs Jack Nicholson, Patricia Clarkson and Aaron Eckhart in this thriller where a retiring police officer cannot give up investigating the child murder he does not feel was solved on his last day of work.

The underrated, under seen and overlooked gem of Nicolson’s late career. A truly bleak thriller where Jack’s detective become so obsessed keeping his promise to grieving parents that he cannot see his sanity slipping or his morality be warped. The final third sees him set another little girl up as bait for potential serial sex killer. And that plot twist is nowhere near as disturbing as Aaron Eckhart’s handsy seduction of his mentally incompetent suspect played by someone very famous. The Pledge can feel like a conveyor belt of actorly cameos at times. Some of them heart breaking (Mickey Rourke), some of them nutty (Benicio Del Toro’s man child nonce). This is Jack’s show. He dials back all his movie star cool, his magnetic confidence and turns in a complex lead performance that relies on none of his strengths, feels in opposition to all his movie star magic.

8

The Shooting (1966)

Monte Hellman directs Warren Oates, Millie Perkins and Jack Nicholson in this indie western where four strangers ride across a desert to oblivion.

Jack doesn’t appear for the first hour of this existential revenge western that he also produced. When he does he is pretty memorable as the dandy dressed killer who has been on their trail from the start. Oates knows he is on a road to nowhere, resigned to his fate but as uncertain as we are as to why we are on it and who is responsible. We only get obtuse flashes as to the death of the rest of his camp and it is implied he might be the one to have killed his fellow gang members. Millie Perkins is just as enigmatic as the young woman paying them to track yet another killer. She has shades of the lead of True Grit only there is no softening here, no innocence left. You’d need to be in the right mood to appreciate this but it is ultimately worth the puzzling journey.

6

Prizzi’s Honor (1985)

John Huston directs Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner and Angelica Huston in this mafia romcom where two assassins fall for each other.

I found this boring when I watched it as a teenager and interminable as an adult giving it a second chance. Everything moves three beats too slow to be funny and the skewering of The Godfather is directionless. Angelica Huston fills a wonderfully dark character, as the conniving daughter-in-waiting Maerose, but she’s barely in it.

3

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