In the late 1980s, Robert De Niro was on an artistic hot streak, appearing in now-classic films as varied as “Brazil,” “Angel Heart,” “The Untouchables,” and “Midnight Run” within just a few years. Yet one of his finest performances of the era, which came in 1989 in between “Midnight Run” and the movie that would propel De Niro into the 1990s, “Goodfellas,” was overlooked in its moment and has been largely forgotten in the 37 years since.
“Jacknife” teamed De Niro with Ed Harris and Kathy Bates for a moving, contemplative drama about Vietnam vets struggling to leave their pasts behind them; it was one of many films about Vietnam and its aftermath that was made in the wake of Oliver Stone’s phenomenally successful “Platoon” in 1986. Adapted by Stephen Metcalfe from his play “Strange Snow” and sensitively directed by David Jones (“Betrayal,” “84 Charing Cross Road”), it’s a small movie of deep, lingering pleasures.
After “Platoon” became an unexpected box office hit and an awards darling, every Vietnam-related project that had been collecting dust in screenwriters’ drawers suddenly became a hot property, though the trend fizzled almost as quickly as it had ignited given the failure of most of these films to match Stone’s success. For a few years though, it seemed like there was a new Vietnam movie every month, from combat films (“Hamburger Hill, Bat 21”) and meat-and-potatoes action flicks (“Off Limits, “The Siege of Firebase Gloria”) to auteurist passion projects (Brian De Palma’s “Casualties of War”) and even comedies (“Good Morning, Vietnam”).
“Jacknife” belonged to the subcategory dealing with veterans’ issues back at home following the war, a cycle that had an early spurt of popularity in 1978 with “Coming Home” and “The Deer Hunter,” the latter of which was an epic that covered both the war and its aftermath. (Both movies took home multiple Oscars at the 1979 Academy Awards ceremony.) The second wave of post-“Platoon” Vietnam films included several fine entries in this subgenre, including “Distant Thunder” and “In Country,” the latter of which featured a post-“Die Hard” Bruce Willis doing excellent work against type.
The best of these was Francis Ford Coppola’s exquisite and heartbreaking “Gardens of Stone,” about soldiers tasked with burying the war’s dead at Arlington National Cemetery. “Gardens of Stone” was intelligent, heartfelt, and impeccably acted — and like “In Country” and “Distant Thunder,” it sank at the box office, a fate that befell “Jacknife” as well. All of these films were just a little too restrained in their effects and modest in their scale to catch on with mass audiences, but they’ve all aged well and are ripe for rediscovery.
That makes Cinématographe’s new Blu-ray release of “Jacknife” a major event in the world of physical media. The boutique label is presenting “Jacknife” in a new restoration with several enticing extras, including interviews with Harris and Kathy Bates and an audio commentary with film historians Daniel Kremer and Bill Ackerman. There’s also an interview with actor and film historian Illeana Douglas, who puts one of her areas of expertise — the history of films shot in Connecticut — to good use here.
The real value in Cinématographe’s release, however, is the opportunity to rediscover one of De Niro’s best performances from an era when he was turning in nothing but great performances. As Joseph “Megs” Megessey, a vet struggling with PTSD who’s determined to help his more troubled friend Dave (Harris) while also falling in love with Dave’s sister Martha (Bates), De Niro is working in the same register that defined his acclaimed performance as Michael in “The Deer Hunter;” in fact, as many critics noted at the time, “Jacknife” almost plays like an unofficial sequel to that film.
It’s connected to “The Deer Hunter” not just superficially in terms of De Niro’s character, but on a deeper thematic level; just as Michael couldn’t leave his pal Nick (Christopher Walken) behind in Vietnam in “The Deer Hunter,” Megs can’t leave Dave emotionally and psychologically behind in “Jacknife.” The irony in “Jacknife,” and the source of the film’s profound resonance, is that Dave isn’t left behind in Vietnam — he’s left behind once he gets home, in an America that has no place for him anymore.
As Roger Ebert noted in his review at the time of the film’s release, De Niro plays a character who, in helping Dave, is doing what he has to do, not what he wants to do, and this tension is a key to the greatness of his work here. De Niro is at his most reserved in “Jacknife” — it’s the opposite of the (equally great) scenery-chewing turns in “Brazil” and “The Untouchables” — and the restraint and subtlety of his performance ultimately make it one of his most powerful.
Jones, a British director making his first American movie with “Jacknife,” was the right choice to showcase the three actors at the center of the film; his direction is as unobtrusive and undemonstrative as De Niro’s performance, giving the film a gentle, quiet impact that sneaks up on the viewer. In 1989, the movie might have been too low-key for its own good — moviegoers the week of its release were drawn to the more overt melodrama of “Lean on Me” and the decidedly unsubtle comedy of “Police Academy 6” — but thanks to Cinématographe it’s got a second chance at finding an audience.
The special edition Blu-ray of “Jacknife” is available at Cinématographe’s website.