Affliction

Starring: Nick Nolte, James Coburn, Sissy Spacek and Willem Dafoe

At some point in life, every man must face up to whether he has lived up to his father's expectations, and when a father is a drunken, abusive shell of a man, a fatalistic mentality soon replaces an optimistic one. That said, Affliction, based on the novel by Russel Banks, can be best summarized as "the Anti-Father's Day movie".

Nick Nolte, stars as Wade Whitehouse, the sheriff of a small town in New Hampshire, who lets external forces take control of his life and ultimately shift his life, or what seemed like one, towards unravelment. In the beginning of hunting season, a local resident takes a wealthy businessman out deer hunting, with the businessman winding up dead. This arouses suspicion from Wade, who after consulting with his brother Rolfe (played by Willem Dafoe), begins to develop his own conspiracy theory behind what happened. While Wade assumes that the plot seems to thicken, he is forced to deal with a death in the family, a custody suit over his daughter with an ex-wife who detests him, a foul-mouthed father, and a painful toothache. This leads Wade to start taking risks with his life, starting with his case. His dormant dark side soon begins to surface, and what was once a shy, unassuming father becomes a raging source of volcanic fury. Since two vicious animals can't live in one cage, Wade who was used to being pounded into submission by a drunken father, must now face his father as a contender on equal footing and put an end to the insults, the liquor and the shame. Dealing with this many problems sends Wade hurling into the abyss with no support or savior in sight. Without any sense of accountability, Wade runs to meet his doom, losing his friends, community and job in the process. When his only connection to reality ends up being his father, the final string is cut, and Wade loses his identity in a tempest of anger.

Without any doubt, this movie is a man's movie. Though starting off a tad slowly, the film picks up steam and rams through the audience like a Mack truck at the end. There hasn't been a film where a man "goes pop" in a long time, and this certainly fills the gap and makes up for it. It's depressing and it hits you in the gut because it's undeniably real. Nick Nolte gives the performance of his career, and though he doesn't have a fan club yet, this will give the man some support. His progression towards madness and engendered aggressiveness have already earned him numerous industry awards and puts him in tight competition for the Best Actor Oscar, for which he was nominated, against Ian McKellan of Gods and Monsters. Even more appealing is the second "treat" of the film. Glen Whitehouse, Wade's rough father, is played by James Coburn, who was nominated for his performance as well. Every scene is a show stopper for him. He steals all the attention with uninhibited cruelty, and is clearly stakes his claim for worst father figure in the history of cinema. Sissy Spacek plays a decent role in the form of Wade's girlfriend Margie, and Willem Dafoe is somewhat underdeveloped as Wade's brother Rolfe, which frankly shouldn't matter, since Nolte's dynamite performance is the locus of attention. When you've got an impending explosion, does anything else matter? Never - the sight is too transfixing, so Nolte's view of his father, so shifts to our view of Nolte.

The film was written (as an adaptation) and directed by Paul Schrader, the writer behind a few of Martin Scorsese's classics such as Raging Bull and Taxi Driver (both films are essential to any Robert De Niro fan). His characters are flawed and jump out of the screen because they're intense, and that's what keeps the film moving. The film is a fascinating reverse parallel to Taxi Driver. Affliction takes place in a small town with a character that lets life and society afflict him to the point where he lets loose his rage on those around him and forces his life to spiral downwards. Taxi Driver is situated in the city and its flawed protagonist, Travis Bickle, takes his anger on others to make sense of his life and gain redemption in his eyes. What's interesting is that Nolte and De Niro played character's that never operated on the same wavelength to begin with; it only took an external situation to set either of them off to a bang. Nolte blankets his rage, lets it loose and then sucks it back in again, while De Niro attempts to take out his rage, absorb it, and then flush it out once more, and in their minds they win, but in society's they lose.