A deeply troubled small-town cop investigates a suspicious hunting death while other events jeopardize his sanity.A deeply troubled small-town cop investigates a suspicious hunting death while other events jeopardize his sanity.A deeply troubled small-town cop investigates a suspicious hunting death while other events jeopardize his sanity.
- Won 1 Oscar
- 8 wins & 19 nominations total
- Jack Hewitt
- (as Jim True)
- Frankie Lacoy
- (as Chris Heyerdahl)
- Jimmy Dane
- (as Charles Powell)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaWhen meeting with James Coburn to discuss the film, director Paul Schrader encouraged Coburn to make heavy preparations for his role. Coburn responded "Oh, you mean you want me to really act? I can do that. I haven't often been asked to, but I can."
- GoofsWade gets the two beers out of the refrigerator. They are already open.
- Quotes
Rolfe Whitehouse: [Last lines] The historical facts are known by everyone. All of Lawford, all of New Hampshire, some of Massachusetts. Facts do not make history. Our stories, Wade's and mine, describe the lives of the boys and men for thousands of years: boys who were beaten by their fathers, whose capacity for love and trust was crippled almost at birth, men whose best hope for connection with other human beings lay in detachment, as if life were over. It's how we keep from destroying in turn our own children and terrorizing the women who have the misfortune to love us; how we absent ourselves from the tradition of male violence; how we decline the seduction of revenge. Jack's truck turned up three days later in a shopping mall in Toronto. Wade killed Jack, just as surely as Jack did not kill Evan Twombley, even accidentally. The link between Jack and Twombley, LaRiviere and Mel Gordon existed only in Wade's wild imaginings. And briefly, I admit, in mine as well. LaRiviere and Mel Gordon were indeed in business. The Parker Mountain Ski Resort is now advertised across the country. The community of Lawford, as such, no longer exists. It is an economic zone between Littleton and Catamount. The house is still in Wade's name, and I keep paying taxes on it. It remains empty. Now and then, I drive out there and sit in my car, and wonder, why not let it go? Why not let LaRiviere buy it and build the condominiums he wants there? We want to believe Wade died that same November, froze to death on a bench or a sidewalk. You cannot understand how a man, a normal man, a man like you and me, could do such a terrible thing. Unless the police happen to arrest a vagrant who turns out to be Wade Whitehouse, there will be no more mention of him. Or his friend, Jack Hewitt. Or our father. The story will be over, except that I continue.
- SoundtracksOpen the Door to Your Heart
Written by Ned Miller
Performed by Bonnie Guitar
Used by permission of Dandelion Music Co.
Courtesy of Bear Family Records
[Plays in the bar while Wade talks to his friend and hears the people at the nearby table gossiping about him.]
Luckily the audience isn't made to believe Nolte's cause, to us he looks just as mad as he does to the characters around them. This is well done, because it could've been presented as some big twist at the end.
Anyway, the "mystery" element to the film isn't that important. It's mostly about how hard - and almost impossible - it is to prevent an emotionally abused man to make the same mistakes his father made. This idea is presented well, but by the end it just feels so thick and depressing that it's hard to take anything from the film, because you don't want to remember it.
Acting-wise the movie is quite good. Nolte delivers what I think is his best performance here, with a quiet desperation wonderfully put out by his eyes, voice, face, and so on. James Coburn does his usual well, but I have to question just why he won an Oscar for this. Don't get me wrong, he was a terrific actor and his performance in this is great, but he's not in many scenes, and the scenes he is in are mostly just a variation of the same thing: Coburn drunkenly and violently mumbles at his sons and eventually starts to yell and thrash. This is all well and good, but his scenes never go beyond that, except for (maybe) at the end when he spews his own sort of twisted philosophy to Nolte.
Other great performances come from Sissy Spacek as Nolte's increasingly uneasy girlfriend. Also Willem Dafoe as Nolte's brother who is so concerned with being quiet and not problematic that he cant prevent the build-up of violence and abuse in his family. I'd say that this performance is more Oscar worthy than Coburn's.
This is a good movie with a great message, but it doesn't put enough on the table, 7/10.
- NoArrow
- Apr 17, 2004
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Details
Box office
- Budget
- $6,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $6,330,054
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $63,979
- Jan 3, 1999
- Gross worldwide
- $6,330,054
- Runtime1 hour 54 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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