Murder and danger on a realistic scale....with some romance thrown in

"Nadine" was written and directed by Robert Benton, who famously co-wrote Bonnie and Clyde, another tale of crime in Texas. Between the two films, Benton won Oscars for "Kramer vs. Kramer," decidedly not about crime and murder. But between Nadine and Bonnie and Clyde, one feels that Benton h had a real liking for crime pictures. Twee divorce dramas were not his usual thing.

And throw this one in - The Ice Harvest -- made nearly 20 years after Nadine. Benton just wrote that one , but again -- as with Nadine -- we got a good sense of "small time, small city crime" and how whatever organized crime elements there may be in a town, they are small, just a few people, "hiding in plain sight" in the managements of your bars, your restaurants and...more logically, your strip clubs and your massage parlors. The key element in this small city Robert Benton crime stories is that the local gangsters DO kill people, and that makes them true criminals, and that gives all these little crime movies a certain element of real danger.

That's what I like about Nadine. "Up front" may be a comedy of remarriage between divorcing Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger, but their romance is fraught on all sides by the danger of local Texas gang boss Rip Torn(peaking in this movie and a few others around this time) legitimately ready to kill this couple to get what he wants.

I like how Torn runs a local arena that does wrestling shows and how therefore his two main henchmen are moonlighting...wrestlers. Their capacity for fake violence backed by a criminal capacity for REAL violence.

There are a couple of murders in Nadine, a box full of rattlesnakes and a particularly realistic "slow motion chase" through a dilapidated old three story house and across a rickety ladder to the old house next door. Its all low key and real, but DANGEROUS. We sense Jeff and Kim being high enough off the ground that a fall from the ladder (onto wrought iron fence spikes below) could easily kill or maim them.

All of this makes Nadine an odd little number. Romantic comedy? Yes. Nostalgia piece? Yes (it is set in 1954.) But the murderous goings on make the movie just serious enough to take seriously. You really care for Jeff and Kim (who reveals she is pregnant by him) to make it out alive. You're not really depending on them to come out of it rich, either. Which is what they want, but likely what they won't get.

Rip Torn did this movie and one called "Extreme Prejudice" the same year. Both set in Texas. He was a crime boss in this one; a Texas Ranger(with Nick Nolte) in "Prejudice." As I recall he wore a cowboy hat in both of them, but a beard only in this one. In both movies, he ruled, with his commanding sonorous voice selling his authority with ease. In Nadine, he gets a great line to say with that voice: "You work your butt off for years to make something of yourself, and it takes two nitwits ten minutes to bring it all down." Ain't that the truth.

And praise to Glenne Headley -- a sweet funny actress who does well as Bridges new "fiancé" who doesn't stand a chance against Basinger. Miss Headley passed away recently, but she leaves behind a few good performances in a few movies as her legacy , this is one of them.

Try Nadine some time. But for best results, watch it alongside "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Ice Harvest." They all fit together.