America’s border issues, and all the complicated gray areas that provide no easy answers, are played out through the eyes of Charlie Smith (Jack Nicholson), a pay-check to pay-check Los Angeles based Border Patrol Agent, who transfers to El Paso in order to buy a duplex and appease his deep as a bottle-cap wife Marcy (Valerie Perrine). Charlie gets leveraged financially as Marcy opens up a credit account to furnish the house and has an above ground swimming pool installed in the backyard. With little options, he is shown how the “wetback” pay-off game is played by Cat (Harvey Keitel), his neighbor and fellow El Paso Border Patrol Guard, played with an ambivalent lack of morality for the Mexican immigrants he exploits. Warren Oates is perfect as the complicit, go along, get along supervisor Red, who doesn’t want the unit’s side money racket spoiled. Nicholson’s slow burn builds to an inferno, as the corrupt system moves from bribes, to murder and child kidnapping – driving Charlie to return a stolen baby to its mother – no matter the cost.
