Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Bob Taylor (...) shall we &/ why not, buy a goddam big car/ drive he sd, for/ Christ's sake, look/ out where yr going. (I Know A Man by Robert Creeley). This poem is recited at the beginning of the film; I guess Nicholson was trying for some cultural reference that escaped me. The times were rough on those who sought meaning in the arts; there were too many filmmakers, painters, writers who were more interested in reshaping their consciousness than communicating with the world.I give this 4/10 because of Karen Black, because of the basketball sequences that are quite well shot, because Black and Tepper have an entertaining argument in the supermarket. The rest of the movie doesn't interest me in any way. It will go into the bargain bin of film history along with Head, Alice's Restaurant, The Strawberry Statement, Zabriskie Point and many more once lauded, now forgotten efforts.

cultfilmfreaksdotcom As most people know, Jack Nicholson is a rabid basketball fan. He has his own center seat at the L.A. Lakers games and even before becoming really famous, according to Roman Polanski in a CHINATOWN interview, he furiously demanded to watch a televised game in his trailer...So it may come as no surprise that Jack's directorial debut, a few years before that, would center on a college basketball player drawing crowds during the "turbulent" hippie era.The games and practices are filmed nicely, combining a shaky documentary style with creative editing that went into other BBC productions like EASY RIDER, in which Jack co- starred, and surreal aspects of HEAD, that he co-wrote.Bruce Dern's hard-nosed Coach Bullion wants to win games, and his star player Hector, played by William Tepper, best known as Tom Hank's uptight brother in BACHELOR PARTY years later, is the perfect fit for the role – but only in one important aspect: He's tall and can play the game really well.Unfortunately Tepper isn't interesting enough to carry the story along. Remaining in peripheral rhythm with Gabriel, his rebellious roommate, Hector, like the film itself, isn't sure whether to center his attention on basketball or the student revolutionaries, and winds up meandering pointlessly in-between.As the bushy-haired radical, Michael Margotta's Gabriel is the token messianic anti-hero. From heading a non-violent guerrilla raid during an opening game, to feigning insanity to avoid the Vietnam draft, he eventually takes personal wrath on Karen Black's Olive, who, as Hector's on/off girlfriend having an affair with an enigmatic character played by writer Robert Towne, is, compared to her standout performance in FIVE EASY PIECES, ultimately wasted in a filler role.Nicholson juggles noisy basketball games and the hippie students gathered with Henry Jaglom's radical campus professor, while June Fairchild, best known as the Ajax-snorting lady in Cheech and Chong's UP IN SMOKE, appears as a cheerleading hippie. The soon to-be- famous Cindy Williams turns up in a quick cameo and future HILL STREET BLUES actor Mike Warren, as one of the players depending on Hector's talent, simply wants the team to go all the way.DRIVE, HE SAID tries really hard to capture drug culture angst and, straying from a sport providing the core of the film's energy and purpose, and with two leading actors not strong enough to carry either the athletic or protest story lines, is more of a curio for anyone interested in what Nicholson was up to before blasting off into cult, and then mainstream, superstardom.

NORDIC-2 Before he became a journalist, Eugene McCarthy's speechwriter, and then an Oscar-winning screenwriter (The Candidate), Jeremy Larner was a successful novelist. His first effort, Drive, He Said (Delacorte Press, 1964) won the $10,000 Delta Prize for best first novel, beating out over a thousand other manuscripts. The protagonist of Drive, He Said is Hector Bloom, "a half-hick, half-Jew, left-handed neurotic basketball player from the green hills of California" who attends a small, upstate New York university on the Hudson River. The book's other protagonist is Bloom's roommate, Gabriel Reuben, a New York City Jew from an affluent family who nonetheless harbors revolutionary political sentiments. Bloom plays great basketball, sleeps with a professor's wife, and confusedly ponders his future with pro recruiters while Reuben plots seditious mayhem—and eventually acts out by burning down the campus! Written before America's full engagement in Vietnam, Drive, He Said is more centrally concerned with early 1960s cultural vertigo, the vagaries of American Dream ideology, and arms race anxieties. Scripted just after the Sixties by first-time director Jack Nicholson in collaboration with author Jeremy Larner (and un-credited help from Robert Towne and Terrence Malick), Drive, He Said zeroes in on the radicalization of an All-American college jock during the era of Vietnam War protests—which were at their height when the movie was being filmed on the campus of the University of Oregon (Eugene, OR). The somewhat chaotic structure of Drive He Said, while off-putting to some critics, nicely enacts the turmoil of the time. Performances are, however, a mixed bag. The redoubtable Bruce Dern is excellent as Hector's mean-spirited coach. Karen Black is equally convincing as Olive, Hector's troubled mistress. Michael Margotta, who plays Hector's roommate, the increasingly psychotic campus radical is also good. Unfortunately William Tepper, an unknown cast as Hector lacks the charisma to carry off the lead role. Filmmaker Henry Jaglom and screenwriter Robert Towne both play professors and David Ogden Stiers and Cindy Williams appear in minor roles. Screened at the 6th Annual CineVegas Film Festival (2004) where Jack Nicholson was honored with the Festival's Marquee Award, Drive, He Said has not been released on VHS or DVD.

PR-7 Some movies are repellent but still fascinating (Pulp Fiction); others are simply boring. This movie has an almost unique feature of being both utterly repellent and totally boring. By the end I didn't care about any of the characters, I just wanted all of them dead so I could get out of the theatre.