Two Minute Warning
TWO MINUTE WARNING (15)
D: Larry Peerce
Universal/Filmways (Edward S. Feldman)
US 1976
115 mins
Thriller
W: Edward Hume [based on the novel by George
LaFountaine]
DP: Gerald Hirschfeld
Ed: Eve Newman & Walter
Hannemann
Mus: Charles Fox
Charlton Heston, John Cassavetes, Martin Balsam, Beau Bridges,
David Janssen, Marilyn Hassett, Jack Klugman, Gena Rowlands, Walter Pidgeon
A psychotic lone gunman sets his sniper crosshairs on the
crowd of a championship American Football game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in this thriller from the 1970's.
Like all disaster flicks from around the same era, the
build up consists of soap opera melodramatics as various characters are introduced, bearing no consequence to the plot except to build tension.
Perched above the scoreboard, the assassin picks out his
victims through his sights as the big game unfolds on the pitch, while the LAPD & SWAT, aware of his presence, arm wrestle for control of the situation before the maniac begins opening
fire.
When the gunfire finally does commence, the ensuing terror
and panic causes more harm than the whizzing bullets as thousands of spectators flee for their lives, making for a dramatic, but rather anticlimactic finale when neither the gunman, nor his
motives are explained.
A very well made thriller from a filmmaking standpoint,
but it's the sort of film that will either keep you gripped from start to finish or make you fall asleep due to its slow build up which seems to drag on for eons.
6/10
