Goin' South (1978)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

This movie basically uses spousal rape as one of its main comedic devices. Now I turned it off at the point when he literally ties her to the bed and rapes her, but I cannot really imagine how that was eventually turned around into something endearing and funny. This movie not only squandered a wonderful cast and was consistently unfunny, it actually managed to be rather brutally disturbing and misogynistic. How so many people seem to find it a sweet family flick is beyond me. "I sure enjoyed canning those apricots last night" is not a funny joke when you know it refers to forcing an unwilling virgin to have sex with you in the hopes she will eventually learn to like it. Watching a peeping tom jerk off is not family fun. I honestly feel worse off for having watched half of this creepy "comedy" and am totally baffled by these positive reviews.

One can't help but notice how Nicholson eventually gave up on concealing his hilariously obvious coke nose (to the untrained ear it just sounds like "allergies"- this is the usual excuse given, of course....). Over the counter allergy medicine can help with allergy symptoms. Nothing helps cocaine-blasted sinuses. Not even Scorsese could direct while coked up. Nicholson's attempt is considerably more disastrous. Take a second look at the cast (see Belushi) and it isn't hard to deduce what happened to this movie.Note that it gets steadily worse as the film progresses.I wasn't expecting a "great" movie being that this was Nicholson's only directing effort. I was just curious. I didn't expect something this bad. Yikes.

Some very good ideas in this western. Some extremely good situations. Some good suspended situations too. And yet we regret Nicholson is directing himself. He can't see himself when he is acting and that shows tremendously in the film. It explains some slow and long sequences that should have been packed in the acting itself. That explains why the actor Jack Nicholson is too often using some faces and attitudes and gestures that we have already seen in The Shining, in The Witches of Eastwood, or in many other films. He cannot see himself and thus he cannot direct himself properly. And there were and are some extremely potential situations. There could have been, and there should have been.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

This is typical Jack Nicholson of the 1970s, which means good news and bad news, at least for me. I usually find the characters he plays interesting and with a decided edge, but along with that comes a profane mouth with a penchant for using the Lord's name in vain. Here, he blasphemes three times in the first five minutes. (Where is nurse Rathet when you need her?)That's the case here, too, in this offbeat western in which co-stars with the pretty and soft- spoken Mary Steenburgen. Nicholson also directed this film.The movie is more interesting that the description of it. If language, as mentioned above, doesn't bother you then I would recommend this as a "sleeper" film, one that isn't well- known but will surprise you with the entertainment. It has a deep cast, too, of veteran actors and newcomers who became well-known.