Suprisingly, I'd never heard of this one before. I watched it because my dad had reccommended it to me and I've always liked Nick Nolte. I guess I was expecting a war movie (I'm not terribly fond of them) but what I got was way more than that. Nick Nolte plays one of his best roles ever as merchant marine, Ray Hicks. He's just finished his tour of duty in Vietnam when he is asked a favor by his best friend. What follows next is two hours of tense moments, realistic situations, great music, harsh violence and a finale that was like nothing I have ever seen before.
I enjoyed Michael Moriarity's role as John and Tuesday Weld is great (and beautiful) as always. Richard Masur and Ray Sharkey provide a little bit of comedy relief as a pair of bumbling (but psychotic) idiots. Also, did I mention just how great Nick Nolte is in this movie? I mean, he's always had a strong screen prescence in everything he's ever done, but here, he does such a great job with the part that you really want to know more about his background. There really isn't much explanation as to where he's from and just what he's about, but in the end, you do have a pretty good idea of what makes him tick.
I just watched this for a second time and I'm pretty sure that I will end up picking up the dvd. One thing I can say, after watching this I'll never look at that Creedence song the same way again.
