I'm kinda late to the party on this one, but it holds up surprisingly well. James Foley's allegence to Jim Thompson's text makes for a grounded narrative, beautifully shot in scope and compellingly scored by Maurice Jarre.
As an escapee from a mental hospital, drifting ex-boxer Kid Collie (Jason Patric) emerges from a boulder pile in the southern California desert to meet an unlikely alcoholic widow, Fay (Rachel Ward), in a dusty remote dive bar, who entices him into performing maintenance work at her deteriorating date farm estate. When crooked Uncle Bud (Bruce Dern) joins the two, Fay's layers soon reveal a darker side as she and Bud concoct a scheme to kidnap the son of a local wealthy family and have Collie carry out the dirty work, to which the troubled ex-boxer agrees, but he soon double-backs on them to an unexpected fatal end. Patric's performance in particular echos the best of any onscreen by John Garfield.
As an escapee from a mental hospital, drifting ex-boxer Kid Collie (Jason Patric) emerges from a boulder pile in the southern California desert to meet an unlikely alcoholic widow, Fay (Rachel Ward), in a dusty remote dive bar, who entices him into performing maintenance work at her deteriorating date farm estate. When crooked Uncle Bud (Bruce Dern) joins the two, Fay's layers soon reveal a darker side as she and Bud concoct a scheme to kidnap the son of a local wealthy family and have Collie carry out the dirty work, to which the troubled ex-boxer agrees, but he soon double-backs on them to an unexpected fatal end. Patric's performance in particular echos the best of any onscreen by John Garfield.