Affliction (1997)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Wade Whitehouse	Nick Nolte
Glen Whitehouse	James Coburn
Margie Fogg	Sissy Spacek
Rolfe Whitehouse	Willem Dafoe	½
Lillian Whitehouse Horner	Mary Beth Hurt	½
Jill Whitehouse	Brigid Tierney	½
Gordon LaRiviere	Holmes Osborne
Jack Hewitt	Jim True-Frost	½

Review

Early on in this hard-hitting, bleak crime-drama by Paul Schrader, the film has all the hallmarks of a splendid novel adaptation. There's an urgency and sleight of hand to the storytelling, and characters and situations float in and out of focus like in a good book. The story is centered around out-of-luck police officer and weekend dad Wade Whitehouse, played with great effort by Nick Nolte. He pinpoints Wade's unlucky combination of brute forcefulness and heart-on-sleeve emotional instability. Through Wade we eventually find ourselves in the middle of a family drama mixed in with a crime subplot, and it all works quite well until Schrader is left with the task of reining everything in. The film ultimately paints itself into a corner with Wade, from which there is no escape other than through overblown actions and statements. And it doesn't much help that Schrader turns to Willem Dafoe to deliver the latter in the form of an insipid narration. There's arguably a good story at the core of Affliction, but it's not told with the necessary subtlety or conviction. A sinister James Coburn won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his part as Nolte's father.