There's something about Jack Nicholson that makes you want to grin. Maybe it's the anticipation that you'll see him get away with something.He's the guy who knows the angles His screen persona was established for all time the moment he told the waitress to hold the chicken salad between her knees in "Five Easy Pieces."

 

"As Good as It Gets" takes that attitude as far as it will go in the direction it was already headed: He plays an obsessive-compulsive curmudgeon whose communication with the world is mostly limited to insults--not funny ones, but comments intended to wound.

 

It is some kind of twisted tribute to Nicholson that he's able to use this dialogue in what is, after all, a comedy. He hurls racist, sexist, homophobic and physical insults at everyone he meets, and because it's Nicholson, we let him;we know there has to be a payback somehow. If you see the movie, ask yourself how Nicholson's tirades would sound coming from any other actor. They'd bring the film to an appalled halt.