Drive, He Said

Drive, He Said (Criterion #547).
1971 BBS Productions and Columbia Pictures.
Starring: William Tepper, Karen Black, Michael Margotta, Bruce Dern, Robert Towne, Henry Jaglom, Michael Warren, Charles Robinson, David Ogden Stiers, Cindy Williams
Produced by Steve Blauner and Jack Nicholson
Screenplay: Jeremy Larner, Jack Nicholson, Terrence Malick (uncredited)
Director: Jack Nicholson
Drive, He Said is only available as part of Criterion's box set America Lost and Found: The BBS Story. Amazon listings: Standard DVD. Blu-ray.

Jack Nicholson's directoral debut not surprisingly features basketball as one of the central plotlines. It's also an interesting, but disorganized film. I still found it compelling enough.

Hector Bloom (Tepper) is a star college basketball player from California who has found himself at a small university somewhere in Ohio (modeled after Kent State). His roommate Gabriel (Margotta) is from a well off family, but he's still harboring radical feelings and getting involved with campus protests. Both Hector and Gabriel are both facing the draft: Hector to the NBA, while Gabriel will do just about everything to not go to Vietnam. And Hector, as the film goes on, seems more and more unhappy at the thought of turning professional.

Hector is also having an affair with the wife of his favorite professor, Olive (Black), which comes to an end once he realizes that he's in love with her. And then, Olive reveals she's pregnant. Coach Bullion (Dern) does his best to run the team and keep Hector motivated while slowly realizing that his star player may not have the heart for the game and the rest of the team anymore.

Drive, He Said has one notable standout performance, from Margotta as the increasingly crazed radical Gabriel, and the film itself is good, but not great. Interesting, I felt nonetheless, even if the finished project came across more as a series of unrelated, episodic sketches that are only tied together by the main characters. Recommended movie.