This thriller takes a little while to get going, but once it does, it's fascinating. The beginning feels disjointed and hops around all over the place without giving me a good sense of who or what I was supposed to be paying attention to most. However, about halfway through the movie, everything comes together and the story starts to pick up a little. There are still a lot of awkward moments and some flaws in the story, but overall it turns into a pretty entertaining suspenseful story. 2.5 stars.
Best Part: Dustin Hoffman's reactions seemed to me to be very realistic. Obviously I've never been in this situation, but he acted exactly like I have always thought most people would under these circumstances - more paranoid and panicky than most every-day-guy-thrown-into-a-tense-situation movie characters.
Worst Part: There were several moments where it felt like the tension was being ramped up in a way that felt false to me - the scene where two old people simultaneously recognize Szell was one of those scenes. It didn't really contribute much to the story or the plot, it was just there as a mood thing, and it didn't work for me.
Flickchart: #806, below Runaway Jury and above Miss Potter.
2 comments:
This is still on my To See list, but I've read William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade. He was quite angry that Dustin Hoffman kept doing a lot of petty things to wear down Laurence Olivier so that the veteran actor was incapable of giving a performance at full strength. Hoffman did that because he was 1) arrogant about being a movie star and 2) insecure about being outperformed by Olivier. Ever since I read that, I've had a lowly opinion of Hoffman.
Sheesh. Yes, that's a terrible thing to do. Which is sad to know, because I love Dustin Hoffman. Heh.
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