University of Virginia Library

CINEMA

'Drive' Could Use A Little Work

By PAUL CHAPLIN

After seeing "Drive, He
Said," I heard one of the
patrons remark, "Stick a
roundball in front of me and
I'll watch it; I don't need a
story." Such devotion to
basketball might be essential
for anyone who watches Jack
Nicholson's first directorial
effort. The film in not really
about basketball, but I'm not
sure what it is about, or what it
is trying to say.

William Tepper stars as a
basketball star who doesn't
have the proper attitude for a
collegiate athlete, namely he's
cocky, gives his coach a lot of
lip, smokes dope, runs around
with a married woman, rooms
with a mad revolutionary and
doesn't care if he plays pro ball
when he gets out of school.
Not exactly the proper attitude
for a good winning team
member, is it?

All that aside, Tepper is
great in the part: he has the
good looks of a popular
athletic idol and the
lankishness of a basketball
player, fidgeting constantly
with his hands, holding oranges
as if they were basketballs, and
looking like he'd dribble any
thing that's round.

The script by Jeremy Larner
and Nicholson is very
confusing and very loose. If the
two had worked a little harder
and decided exactly what they
were trying to say, the film
would definitely be much
better than it is. The
juxtapositions of the basketball
court and the deranged actions
of the mad revolutionary are
ambiguous; we don't know
what to make of them, or
where we should address our
sympathies.

Nicholson's directing is
nothing to get excited about,
yet he is helped tremendously
by Bill Butler's excellent
camera work. This is especially
evident in the basketball
scenes, although some of
Nicholson's choices for camera
angles disrupt the film's
rhythm. The poorest sequence
of the film is the attempted
murder, which comes off as
low camp comedy.

In all, "Drive, He Said" is a
very confused film; if this is a
continuation of "Easy Rider"
looking for America, then the
film fails in it's inability to
make some definite statement
about what wasn't found, or
what feelings should have been
there. "Drive, He Said" in
comparison lacks the strong
acting and surprisingly good
directing which made that film
a success.

Photo By Steve Wells

(Now At The University)