Fatal Fix

By * J.C.

Born to Win is a problem picture about The Problem (dope). It is also about more than that--which is where other problems enter in. With them come some social commentary, some of the aspects of a conventional thriller, some comedy, some rueful drama. Trouble is, all the parts never completely fit together.

George Segal is an ex-hairdresser called J., a facile and funny junkie who likes to say "I'm not addicted, I'm habituated." He roams around Manhattan's West Side scraping up money for fixes and getting into trouble. The cops hassle him. The neighborhood pusher cons him into running sinister little missions on his behalf and rewards him with insubstantial quantities of dope. J. tries swiping a large shipment of heroin, but some hoods catch him, strip him and lock him in a bedroom while they mull over his ultimate fate. He escapes by the wildly funny expedient of donning a woman's dressing gown and putting on a display of perverse exhibitionism to attract the attention of some neighbors across the way. The police are called and cause so much confusion breaking into the apartment that J. has an easy chance to run for it.

But where can he run? The city offers no sanctuary. J. finds temporary solace with a spacy little number named Farm (Karen Black), but the cops are soon on his back again. They want him to help trap the pusher. It is at this point that Born to Win breaks down into arbitrary and rather predictable melodrama. The pusher gets wise to the scheme. He unloads some bad dope on J., but J.'s buddy Billy Dynamite (Jay Fletcher) shoots it first and dies. Scared, J. wants nothing more to do with the cops' scheme, so they bust Farm on a trumped-up charge to force his hand. J.'s choice is excruciatingly simple: blow the whistle on the junkie, who will have him killed, or spend the rest of his sorry life in jail for trafficking in heroin.

A few years back, Czech Director Ivan Passer made Intimate Lighting, which was acclaimed for its warmth and comic invention. In Born to Win, Passer seems a good deal less sure of himself--perhaps because he is working in America for the first time. He handles his actors well--Segal, Fletcher and Black are all exceptionally effective--but he shows no understanding of the social forces that eventually engulf the characters. The film's final scene is, unhappily, less resolution than stalemate. Worse, it has ceased even to matter which alternative J. will choose.

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