Robert Benton's Nadine is one of those mid-80s studio comedies that passed everyone by as it opened in 1987, and eventually found a home on the cable television for the next decade. If you happened to randomly switch channels on a lazy Sunday afternoon in 1994, there is a good chance you caught the middle forty minutes of the movie without ever figuring out what the plot is about. It hits BD on September 29th as part of Alliance Entertainment's Retro VHS collection, and the packaging format is fitting for a film of this kind. It is wrapped in a faux-distressed slipcase with the look of a sun-faded rental cassette from a mom-and-pop video shop in 1989. The disc inside is bare bones; you drop it in, and you get a bare-minimum menu screen, and the movie starts. There are no retrospective interviews, no director commentary, no archival behind-the-scenes coverage. Just eighty-three minutes of Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger yelling at each other in late-1950s Texas while running away from local mobsters.
Set in Austin in 1954, the movie centers on Nadine Hightower (Kim Basinger), a pregnant beautician who decides to sneak into a sleazy photographer's office to retrieve some artistic photographs she took years ago in a moment of poor judgment. She is in the back room looking through the filing cabinets, and when someone walks in and stabs the photographer with a pair of scissors, she grabs an envelope off the desk, thinking it is her photos, and runs out the back door, stealing the city's highway plans instead. Enter Vernon Hightower (Jeff Bridges), her estranged husband who spends his days drinking beer, running a failing bar called the Blue Bonnet, and running low-rent scams. They are in the middle of getting a divorce, but Nadine needs someone stupid enough or loyal enough to help her figure out what to do with the stolen plans, and Vernon fits both descriptions.
The plot itself is pure noir mechanics wrapped in a slapstick screwball framework. Rip Torn appears as Buford Pope, a slimy local real estate developer who bought up cheap land along the proposed highway route and wants the plans back to secure his fortune. He has a sleazy, casual arrogance that makes every scene he is in a highlight. He is backed up by a collection of Texas heavies that could have walked off the set of a late period Western. What keeps Nadine afloat is not the crime plot or the political corruption aspect. The script, written by Benton himself, uses the stolen plans as a basic engine to force these two chaotic adults to spend time together in tight spaces. Vernon is a classic Texas dreamer type, a guy who is always thinking he is thirty seconds away from a huge payout at all times, but cannot keep the electricity on in his bar. Nadine is sharper, practically grounded, and frustrated by his antics, but she clearly has a soft spot for him.
Bridges' portrayal of Vernon is full of a loose, sweat-stained charm. He does a lot of physically funny work, stuttering through excuses, tripping over furniture, and desperately trying to act like tough guy whenever actual danger presents itself. Basinger holds her own surprisingly well as the straight man to his bumbling idiot routine. She has good comedic timing in expressing exasperation, and her Texas accent sounds natural rather than exaggerated. The movie moves at a brisk pace, and at less than an hour and a half, it never stays around to overstay its welcome. Benton directs with a simple, unpretentious style that lets the actors bounce off one another. Legendary cinematographer Néstor Almendros had the picture shot, giving the dusty Texas heat a warm, sun-bleached look that looks great on high definition physical media, but without the 4K restoration effort. The transfer on this disc is clean, showing off the gritty textures of the wardrobe and the humid atmosphere without looking overly scrubbed or artificially smoothed out.
That said, it is easy to see why Nadine never became a huge box office hit or a recognized classic. It exists in a weird middle ground between a genre film and a marriage comedy. The tone can shift pretty wildly from goofy physical comedy to moments of sudden violence, like the opening murder or a shootout in a junkyard. The banter between Bridges and Basinger can get repetitive in the middle act when they are stuck arguing about their relationship while hiding out from hitmen. If you are looking for deep thematic depth or a career-defining performance, you are not going to find it here. Nadine is a lightweight studio programmer from an era when major Hollywood studios regularly churned out mid-budget star vehicles just to fill out the summer slate. It is breezy, slightly cynical about human nature, and relies heavily on the charisma of its lead actors to carry the weight of a predictable script.
As far as this physical release is concerned, Alliance Entertainment knows who the target audience is for these retro VHS slipcase editions. It is for collectors who feel nostalgic for the days of physical media browsing, and you bought or rented a movie based purely on a cool piece of painted poster art on the box. You are paying for the physical aesthetics and a solid high definition of a forgotten 80s comedy. If you like Jeff Bridges as a fast-talking scoundrel, or have a soft spot for 80s comedies that feel like lost drive-in movies, this disc is worth picking up when it releases on the 29th. But do not go in looking for a load of bonus features, or a forgotten cinematic milestone. It is a fun, messy piece of regional pulp that works best when you turn off your brain and let the lead actors carry it.
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