Just perfect...

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Better Late Then Never

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Released in 1978 and directed by Jack Nicholson, "Goin' South" is a Western comedy/romance starring Nicholson as a two-bit outlaw saved from hanging to marry a prim virgin (Mary Steenburgen) who uses him to (try to) strike gold on the mine located on her remote ranch, inherited from her dad. But the ex-outlaw's former gang might not let him strike it rich, whether with gold or love. The wannabe outlaws are played by Veronica Cartwright, Tracey Walter, Danny DeVito and Jeff Morris.The tone is akin to 1976's "The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox," but the movie's not as good. It's generally amusing, but sometimes a little boring; the script needed more work to further draw out its potential. Yet it's still worth catching if you like the cast. There are some chuckles. The best parts are the sequences in the town involving two deputies (Christopher Lloyd & John Belushi), the sheriff (Richard Bradford) and others.This was one of only three films directed by Jack (if you don't count "The Terror," where he got his initial experience). It also marked the film debut of Steenburgen and was one of Belushi's first theatrical films (he did this and "Animal House" around the same time).The film runs 108 minutes and was shot in Durango, Mexico.GRADE: Borderline B-/C+

Many folks think Nicholson can do no wrong. But in my book, this mess has to be the nadir of his often outstanding career. When he's got a strong guiding hand, as in 5 Easy Pieces (1970) or Chinatown (1974), he can deliver aces. Here, however, he's directing himself, and the result is a leering, eye-rolling, slice of buffoonery, perhaps an ego-trip of some misguided sort. The movie itself collapses into near incoherence, lacking both narrative sense and timing. Events follow in no particular order, while scenes too often appear to indulge the actor instead of playing to others or advancing the story. Actually, the movie reminds me perversely of a kids Saturday matinée, where the baddie schemes to grab the good girl's land and Gabby Hayes or Smiley Burnette supplies comic relief. Except here, there's only the buffoon, the land- grabber, and the good girl. I do, however, feel sorry for Mary Steenburgen whose affecting performance gets lost amid the eye-rolling antics. Now, I don't know if Nicholson went on a coke binge while shooting in Mexico, as did his buddy Dennis Hopper when he made the disastrous The Last Movie (1971) in Peru. But it would explain a lot. Anyway, the 100+ minutes remains an obscure mess, even 40-years later, and is not so much rollicking as just plain idiotic.

First of all, Going South is funny. And it is entertaining. So just enjoy the movie and stop analyzing it.This is a bit surprising, given Jack Nicholson's corpus. Look at the list of movies he made, and you will see this is his first comedy; not until Witches of Eastwich, 9 years later, do we see him starring in another comedy. There are comic elements in other movies of his, of course, such as the earlier One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and the bizarre Mars Attacks! But in no other movie does Nicholson play such a purely comedic role, where the movie is dependent on his comedic acting. If you look at his first 10 years of starring roles, from 1969 to 1978, you see an actor demonstrating the ability to handle a wide range of serious roles, who wants to avoid being typecast. Yet he is in some slight danger of typecasting, of playing post-60s hipsters and rather serious characters. Going South broadened his acting palette, and while he did not do much more straight comedy, he employed comic twists to lighten many of his roles, especially in "As Good As It Gets."One of the keys to good comedy that stands the test of time is not going overboard. Nicholson pushes his character to extremes, but avoids crossing the line into shallowness, in part because he gives his character such depth through his fine acting. There is a lot of shallow contemporary comedy out there now, and current actors and directors could learn a lot from watching this movie. Nicholson immersed himself so fully in this role that some viewers seem to assume naively that Nicholson was really like Henry Lloyd Moon, at least at the time. He's an actor! (See The Passenger - 1975.)I'm a bit puzzled by some of the off the mark reviews, which seem to be due in part to judging the 1978 Nicholson by 2008 Nicholson. One "Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine," quite bizarrely complained that in Going South, Nicholson was reusing "faces and attitudes and gestures that we have already seen" ... in later films!Speaking of time travel, Going South is almost a prequel to Back to the Future, Part III, which starred the loony Christopher Lloyd and the lovely Mary Steenburgen in the wild West. Yet Going South was Steenburgen's first movie! Steenburgen delivered her role to perfection. This is interesting given her serious expression opposite Nicholson's antics. I wonder if she had a hard time keeping a straight face? But one of the things that makes this movie work is seeing Nicholson draw Steenburgen in his direction, including sexually and even to taking a drink, and Steenburgen drawing Nicholson toward taking life more seriously. You know this is coming, and in the beginning of the movie you are skeptical, and yet it is done credibly, and with a romantic touch.The scene with the brass bed is one of the most memorable of the movie. Sorry if it offended some women, but there's a lot of truth to that scene, and humor. There's no indication it was done with in a mean spirit or cruelty, which is never appropriate in romance, in or out of marriage. Thankfully, the rest of the scene is all left to the imagination, unlike some of the gratuitous, garbage sex scenes in more recent movies, like Titanic and Cold Mountain. When I watched Rooster Cogburn, I wished John Wayne had tied the eternally chattering Katherine Hepburn to a brass bed, or at least gagged her! Nicholson did a fantastic job of selecting his cast. There are several actors who are still early in their careers, including John Belushi, Danny DeVito, Veronica Cartwright (not so early, given her experience as a child actress) and Ed Begley Jr. The weakness of Going South is that it did not given more of an opportunity for Belushi and DeVito to show their stuff, but this is easily said in hindsight. Lloyd's is the only other major comic role as Nicholson's nemesis. Some rare comedies work every time you see them, and some only work once. Going South is somewhere in between; it works if you watch it every few years, but it is best the first time. It works because of the comedic tension between the key characters, because it doesn't push the comedy too far, and because there is enough serious dramatic acting underlying the performances by Nicholson and Steenburgen. Another reason it works is that not everyone in the movie is a Lloyd or Belushi; there are some normal people, like the sheriff. When everyone in a comedy is a goofball, you've got a problem. I think you need some normal people as a reference point, even in screwball comedies.Going South might have been a little better had there been more amusing lines for some of the secondary characters like DeVito and Belushi. But it is a fun movie to watch, and you get the feeling that Nicholson, Steenburgen and cast had a lot of fun making it. You might want to watch some of the other movies Nicholson made in this 10 year period before seeing Going South to get a perspective on his early work. What you will see is a great actor who has demonstrated versatility throughout his career. Perhaps the one element these performances have in common is the ability of Nicholson to project intense personal energy through the character onto the screen. We see this certainly in later films, but there are few roles where Nicholson invests more energy into his character than in Going South.

This is one of the best movies nobody has seen. I am constantly astounded when I talk to movie lovers, and even Nicholson fans and they've never heard of this movie. Two of the funniest scenes I've ever seen are both in this movie. The first in the opening scene while Moon is celebrating his escape into "Me-Hee-Ko" The second is his impending doom at the gallows, salvation, then return to doom. Also, some of the most outrageous, hilarious quotes you'd ever want to hear make this film worth watching over and over. And the supporting cast is unbelievable. John Belushi, Mary Steenburgen, Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, Ed Begley Jr. My favorite movie line of all time comes from Moon. When Big Abe, Hermine, and Hog show up uninvited at Moon's new home, Big Abe says "I'm so hungry I could eat a froze dog." Abe's face falls when Moon says "Well, I'll go out to the kitchen and see if we got one already froze." I would recommend this movie to anyone. You don't have to be a Nicholson fan, a Western fan, or a comedy fan. I've never met anyone, few though they may be, who watched this film and didn't love it.