Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

PimpinAinttEasy A painfully slow noir (?) flick. Jason Miller (The Exorcist) plays an aging insomniac gangster who lays in bed staring into space. He manages local warehouses where the mob stores their stuff. We are treated to scenes from his daily life. His relationship with his wife played by the beautiful Linda Hayes. A birthday party at a local bar. And then we learn that he is out of favor with his boss and that they could be trying to ease him out of the business. It's all very vague. We are not supposed to understand all of it. There was a problem with the sound on the print that I watched. I couldn't really understand what was going on all the time. It is set in a really ugly town with many seedy bars and joints.The Nickel Ride reminded me of Michael Mann's Thief with its themes of the domestication of a gangster and the horror of middle age. The brooding Jason Miller is terrific. Its a shame that he was working in the wrong decade when Hollywood had so many great actors.Victor French is great in a supporting role as miller's friend. I'm glad I watched it. I don't know if i'll watch it again.(6.5/10)

dansview I don't know if Jasom Miller was acting, or just being himself. His priest in The Exorcist seemed like a variation on the same character he plays here. So perhaps that's Miller's persona. He may just have an extremely intense way about him in real life that fits certain movie characters. Or he may have used technique. Either way, his intensity is always compelling.I think the 70s was the last era when Downtown L.A. had neighborhood bars frequented by white working class men and people knew each other. In fact the film makers were trying to portray that transition here. My favorite aspect of the film and many others from that era, was the slowness. Because you get to see that for most people, the daily routine of life is fairly mundane. There is nothing glamorous about this protagonist's daily existence.All jobs require paper work or daily rounds, and solving problems. All romantic relationships involve eating and sleeping, and putting up with your partner's quirks.If this is the first time Bo Hopkins appeared in a film as a cocky cowboy criminal, than I can see why it would be interesting. He pulls the same routine in some other films shortly after this one, so it gets old. But this may be the original appearance of that character. It's effective here, because his accent and clothes are so different from everyone else's.I agree with the other reviewers that this Linda Haynes actress was good for the role. She had a weird accent and quirky looks, and seemed just the type that a guy like "Cooper" would pick up in his world. I really liked Cooper's back story of having been a "Carny," and the girl's background as a dancer in Vegas. But I can't figure out the age dilemma. Apparently Miller was only 35 during the filming, yet he plays a guy who is basically a dinosaur in the crime world. It's said that he got started as a "kid" 19 years ago, but certainly he wasn't 16. I picture this character pushing 50, and I think Miller himself looked much older than 35. Is his birth date on IMDb an error?If you have patience and appreciate dark character studies, you'll like this one. But don't lose focus as the plot develops, or you will not understand what our guy does for a living. I don't know much about camera work or music, but both seemed classically 70s in their effect. Meaning real to the bone and stylish. It worked for me.

Woodyanders Small-time criminal Cooper (a terrifically intense, restrained, and riveting performance by Jason Miller) manages several warehouses in Los Angeles that the mob uses to store their stolen goods. Known as "the key man" for the key chain he always has on him that can unlock all the warehouses, Cooper is assigned by the local syndicate to negotiate a deal for a new warehouse because the mob has run out of storage space. However, Cooper's superior Carl (a splendidly smooth and dapper turn by John Hillerman) gets nervous and decides to have cocky cowboy button man Turner (marvelously played with swaggering bravado and rip-snorting vitality by Bo Hopkins) keep an eye on Cooper. Director Robert Mulligan, working from a vivid and involving script by Eric Roth, astutely nails the nerve-wracking pressure of eking out a living through illegal means, makes fine use of the gritty urban locations, presents a neat array of colorful, interesting, and totally believable characters, effectively creates and sustains a grim tone throughout, and depicts a harsh and realistic criminal underworld in an admirably stark and unsentimental manner. Miller completely pegs the pain and anguish of a weary and aging bottom man on the totem pole who's in over his head and saddled with more responsibility than he can easily handle; he receives bang-up support from Linda Haynes as Cooper's loyal and concerned ex-dancer girlfriend Sarah, Victor French as hearty and gregarious bar owner Paddie, Richard Evans as obnoxious flunky Bobby, Bart Burns as slippery middle man Elias, and Lou Frizzel as amiable lug Paulie. Jordan Cronenworth's crisp and lively widescreen cinematography offers a wealth of stunning visuals and gives the picture an extra kinetic buzz. Dave Grusin's spare moody score likewise does the brooding trick. The downbeat ending packs a devastating punch. A real sleeper.

chrisdfilm This is a really superb neo-noir and simultaneously realistic look at downtown Los Angeles in the beginning of the seventies. Jason Miller is perfectly cast as Cooper, the morose ex-carny-roustabout-turned-lower-echelon-crime figure. He functions as a semi-independent mob overseer of the storage and fencing of stolen merchandise for an eclectic variety of underworld thieves that cut across all racial divides. The crux of the story involves Cooper trying to close a deal on the purchase of a whole block of abandoned rail warehouses in the derelict 5th and Alameda area of downtown L.A. If he can't pull it off, it may mean the end of not only his career but his life. Director Robert Mulligan is an extremely uneven director having helmed decent pictures like TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, THE SPIRAL ROAD, UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE and BABY, THE RAIN MUST FALL as well as sleepers like THE OTHER. But he's also had his share of clunkers like SUMMER OF '42. However, THE NICKEL RIDE is his masterpiece. Many of things that others seem to find fault with in the film is exactly what makes the picture so unpretentious and sublime. You really have to pay attention to the dialogue and interaction of characters to get the back story and relationships. Something that most viewers are either unable or unwilling to do. They want everything handed to them on a silver platter. The beauty of this film lies not only in the exceptional, low-key, non-showy performances from every single actor involved, but also the visceral evocation of the dying-on-the-vine area of downtown L.A. -- whole blocks of which have not changed much since the making of this film. Equally brilliant is the almost imperceptible building of suspense through the gradual ratcheting-up of understandable paranoia in Cooper's character. By the time of the climax the unseen aura of impending doom -- a feeling which is so borderline we're not sure if Cooper is right-on or is imagining the whole thing -- is really disturbing. There are a couple of violent shock sequences in the last third of the picture that really pack a wallop because of the orchestration of elements. As mentioned by someone else here at IMDb, THE NICKEL RIDE does take the same low-key genre approach as similar neo-noir FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE and HICKEY AND BOGGS -- and it stacks up very favorably alongside them, easily equaling their masterpiece status. Highly recommended. However, the movie was such a flop on initial release I doubt Fox will ever release it on DVD. But keep your eyes peeled because they do run it occasionally letterboxed on the Fox Movie cable channel.