Made in 1989 and set 15 years after the end of the Vietnam War, Jacknife tells the story of alcoholic trucker Dave (Ed Harris) who lives with his sister Martha (Kathy Baker). Robert De Niro is Megs, Dave's ex-'Nam sidekick who re-enters his life on the promise of a fishing trip. Megs and Martha embark on a tentative courtship to the seething fury of Dave, who considers Megs "bad news". However, through wartime flashbacks it soon becomes clear that his hitting the bottle is a means of bottling up his feelings about Vietnam, Megs and their mutual buddy Bobby, killed... in action. Ruminative and romantic, Jacknife slow-burns its predictable though satisfying way to its resolution, the three main players carrying the burdens of their roles with admirable restraint, especially Ed Harris, whose rage is internalised at the expense of his liver. There are echoes of The Deerhunter but this is not a film of that order or scale, as its low-budget synthesiser soundtrack signifies, feeling at times like a superior made-for-TV affair. On the DVD: A full-screen version with a ratio of 4:3. Neither sound nor picture quality are exactly a showcase for DVD technology, both being a little fuzzy, while the dubbing goes noticeably awry on 42 minutes. Special features are decidedly un-special: the original, lugubrious trailer plus "talent profiles" which are merely lists of the main players' previous films. --David Stubbs [show more]
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