Jorge Espinosa

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Many years ago I watched Jacknife and felt it was a great movie. Robert De Niro, Ed Harris, Kathy Baker---what an all star line up, and they deliver, too. The movie is about Vietnam vets dealing with their war pasts, trying to adjust; in there, too, is a love story, within a love story: An ex-soldier helping a grieving peer, and falling for his sister. Fast forward 31 years and I watched Jacknife again, available on Tubi. This time around I found it to be a greater movie. The dialogue caught my attention, as did the outstanding acting. And directing. No sex scenes, no nudity, just a solid performance by all involved with this movie. I gave it 5 stars because, if a film, for unknown reasons, is not accepted by your heart and brain, it has failed. Conversely, the opposite is true. Jacknife succeeeds at all levels, and it leaves you with a very fine sense of satisfaction that it is truly great and necessary to overcome life's obstacles, which hamper our happiness. Very discreetly, the movie's message is one of hope. And new found meaning.

When this film was first released in the mid 1970’s, it bombed. So why would Criterion pick it up in 2019, and put it right up there with the greatest movies ever made? I think audiences and critics alike, back then, were expecting to watch your run of the mill, violent thugs movie. What they got was a woman director’s version of a thugs movie, filled with very interesting dialogue, sprinkled with satire and some traces of comedy. I would rather not give away the plot, but have the reader watch the film in its entirety, but not before researching the production of the movie, cost overruns, lawsuits, and why the director hid two reels of film in her husband’s garage, before final editing. If you are a fan of The Godfather or Casino, maybe you should skip this film. If, however, you’re more the type, who prefers to be entertained, and are a fan of just how well a film is put together, this movie may work for you.