Blood and Wine is a pulpy, noirish thriller featuring Jack Nicholson in his seventh screen collaboration with director Bob Rafelson. Written by Nick Villiers and Alison Cross, the film, touted by the director as the conclusion of an informal trilogy that began with Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens, finds the redoubtable Jack in fine leering form as a duplicitous Miami wine merchant who hopes to remedy his serious financial situation by teaming up with a seedy safecracker to steal and fence a client's pricey diamond necklace. His plans begin to go horribly awry almost immediately after the heist when he is drawn into a violent confrontation with his hard-drinking, neglected wife, his angry, embittered step-son and even his mistress, a comely Cuban immigrant whom the son has been secretly banging on the side. Together these five hapless misfits give new meaning to the word disfunctional as they lurch inexorably to a preordained tragedy largely of their own making. Apart from the always watchable Nicholson in the pivotal role, it's heavyweight co-stars Michael Caine as the consumptive safecracker, Judy Davis as the shrewish wife, Stephen Dorf as the disfunctional son and Jennifer Lopez as the opportunistic mistress that convert this darkly cynical, psychologically murky B picture into A-level entertainment. It's terrific.
