The Last Detail
Directed by Hal Ashby
Written by Robert Towne from a novel by Darryl Poniscan
1973/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
Mulhall: I don’t know what I woulda’ done without the Navy.
Buddusky: Yeah… I guess we’re just a couple of lifers.
Mulhall: Yeah.
I don’t why I waited so long to see one of Jack Nicholson’s best performances.
Eighteen-year-old raw Navy recruit Meadows (Randy Quaid) is caught trying to pilfer $40 from the donation box of the Admiral’s wife’s pet charity. For this he is sentenced to eight years in prison. Buddinsky (“Bad Ass” – Nicholson) and Mulhall (“Mule” – Otis Young) are killing time at the naval base at Norfolk, Virginia waiting for their next orders to come in. They are temporarily ordered to escort Meadows from Norfolk to the Portsmouth Naval Prison in New Hampshire. The trio will travel by bus. The trip should take two days but the sailors have been allotted a week. The escorts think of the trip as a chance to have a vacation on the Government after dropping Meadows off.
But their hearts are even bigger than their vocabulary of curse words and they feel sorry for the morose Meadows whose mood only gets worse with each passing hour. The idea that the kid will spend years in jail prior to any adult experience of life inspires the two to try to show him a good time before delivering him to prison.
As you might imagine, Buddinski is a bit of a wild man aside from being a career sailor. His enthusiasm for life ensures a good time is had by all. Meanwhile, Mulhall worries that Buddinski may have lost interest in their actual mission. With Carol Kane as a young prostitute.
I guess that the premise of this didn’t grab me when this first came out and I have overlooked it ever since. Glad that this project led me to check it out.
In the event, I absolutely loved this. Nicholson and Quaid are both fabulous in their parts. This is, I think, NIcholson nearing his peak as an actor. He is convincing both as a wild and crazy guy and as a committed career sailor and you kind of have to love him. Ashby provides his off-kilter sensibility and the script is hilarious. My favorite part is when these guys run into people trying to sell them on Nichiren Soshu Buddhism and Quaid decides to give chanting a shot. I had a brush with the movement around this time and its portrayal made me laugh and brought back old times. I also loved that the ending did not take an obvious route. Recommended.
The Academy nominated Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid in the categories of Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively. The film was also nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
