Wade: "I get to feeling like a whipped dog some days, Rolfe. And some night I'm going to bite back."
Rolfe: "Haven't you already done a bit of that?"
Wade: "No, not really. I've growled a little, but I haven't bit."

Why Paul Schrader chose to adapt Russell Banks' disquieting literary novel Affliction is no great mystery: its story follows an arc similar to that of Schrader's best known works, such as his screenplays for Scorsese's Taxi Driver and his own Hardcore. Affliction's Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte), like Travis Bickle before him, is a man who fixates on exposing corruption in repression of his own violent past. In Bickle's case, planning the assassination of a governor defers the pain of Vietnam, from which he was honourably discharged; Wade has been afflicted for years by his father Glen's wickedness.

Wade is a barren New Hampshire town's resident policeman and snowplow operator. His personal life is a shambles: his ex-wife hates him; as in Hardcore, Wade has one child, a daughter (Brigid Tierney), with little love left for him; Wade's boss, Gordon LaRiviere (Holmes Osborne), considers him expendable; and his current girlfriend, the humourously named Margie Fogg (Sissy Spacek), is reluctant to become engaged. When Wade sees a chance to play hero by detecting the murderous motives behind a hunting accident (in which Evan Twombley (Sean McCann), a union leader about to testify against organized crime bosses, was killed), he takes it.

Wade has a persistant toothache, a physical manifestation of his grief. Bad memories, like his mouthsore, occasionally prevent him from functioning properly. Glen, much to Wade's chagrin, is still alive, and still prone to berating his children and binge-drinking. Wade obsesses over the Twombley case; if he solves it, it might boost his self-esteem and his reputation. (Schrader's characters are no stranger to third-party redemption.) The investigation also provides Wade with an outlet for his rage, for familial loyalty prevents him from directing it at the people truly deserving of it.

In that respect, Wade is awfully reminiscent of another Banks antihero (at least, another movie version of a Banks antihero), The Sweet Hereafter's ambulance chasing Stephens, who spent weeks seducing a town into believing that a fatal school bus accident could be avenged to avoid confronting the news that his runaway teenaged daughter tested HIV positive. Wade is a more compelling character, cinematically, than Stephens, because Schrader paints a picture of Wade's world before diving into his crusade. We learn that a night in the life of Wade Whitehouse consists of emotional tugs of war with Jill, some pot-smoking with the locals, copious amounts of booze, a fight with the ex, and perhaps an early morning phone call to his estranged brother, Rolfe (Willem Dafoe, also the narrator), a history professor smart enough to have relocated at the first opportunity. Wade leads a listless yet restricted existence.

Nolte is such a commanding screen presence that he makes even a common toothache compelling. After a pair of dynamic turns in Cape Fear and The Prince of Tides, the towering actor frittered away his comeback clout on I Love Trouble, Blue Chips, and other forgettable--sometimes downright embarrassing--big movies. His recent Oscar nod for Affliction signals the beginning of a new phase in his career: Nolte is finally showing his incurably vulnerable side and being recognized for it. Built like Frankenstein's monster, he lurches in scenes with Coburn, revealing a sorrow and hopelessness that gnarls his posture until he seems a foot shorter by the end of the film. He deserves that award come March 21^st.

Coburn, a frequent collaborator of the late, great Sam Peckinpah, delivers his finest performance since Peckinpah's WWII drama Cross of Iron in Affliction. After two decades of jokey cameos in films like The Muppet Movie and Maverick (and even a how-to gambling video!), Coburn reminds us that the blood of a great actor courses through his veins. Gone are the pearly whites and blow-dried hairdo--Glen "Pops" Whitehouse lacks vanity and its superficial charisma. Coburn's trademark gruffness is abrasive in Affliction and not at all endearing; Schrader strips the icon of his very Coburn-ness.

Unfortunately, Affliction's Super8 flashbacks--nods to Banks' fondness for non-linearity, I suppose--lack sting. I dare say they aren't at all necessary: the blankness in Wade's eyes conjures mental images far more brutal and upsetting than anything a director can manufacture. Thankfully, they're but a small portion of this tapestry of anguish woven by Schrader and Banks (Schrader has quite faithfully adapted Banks' prose, almost but obviously not quite to the exclusion of auteurship). It should be warned that the film offers no tidy resolutions to its plot threads--for some afflictions, the filmmakers daringly speculate, there is no cure.-Bill Chambers