Someone's Going to Get Hurt
Added 11/12/2009
Here's a movie for people who hate football. A psychopath with a high-powered rifle breaks into a huge L.A. stadium just before a championship game, and all hell breaks loose. Well, there's more to it than that. The real violence gets going toward the end of the game (hence the title). The film touches on a few of the personal stories of people watching the game.
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Playoff shootout...1970s style
Added 10/12/2009
Underrated 70s disaster movie with another all-star cast. The story is simple: there's a football playoff game in the 90,000+ capacity LA Coliseum and a sniper is on the loose. When the blimp-cam spots him, it's up to the stadium security chief (Charlton Heston) and the SWAT-team leader (John Cassavettes) to stop him before he starts shooting. Who is the sniper? What does he want? Who is the target?
The rest of the characters, predictably, exist to get blown away (or not) by the madman shooter, who remains mysterious throughout the film. (The sniper is limited to first-person shots and long shots as he waits in his nest.) The tension builds...and you know how this is gonna end.
What to say? It was the 1970s, the ratings code was still relatively new, and movies were pushing it. Portrayals of mass murder were becoming more common, and here we have a rather cynical film...quite cynical even by today's standards. We know where it's going. You know the random characters at the stadium---the priest, the gambler, the pickpocket, the bickering couple, the cop---exist as mere sketches before they are relegated to flesh and blood spattering. Even when a fan (a young Beau Bridges) notices the sniper up in his perch, his attempt to warn someone results in an icy confrontation with suspicious and uncaring cops. Even those charged with stopping the killing cannot agree on how to do so, as Heston and Cassavettes bump heads over methods. These scenes, depicting disparity between authority figures either too soft, too gung-ho, or too uncaring, give the film a chilling edge that other entries in the genre either missed or purposely avoided.
We are not treated to a deep study of the sniper, or his motives, which may be more 'old fashioned' in this regard. No long speeches about the political motives, for instance. No boogieman of the day (pick your ethnic terrorist or madman profile). Just sit back and watch the chaos unfold.
Could have been better, though the ending, perhaps still prescient even then, shows what we still do after this kind of thing (back then, mass murder was still relatively 'new'): profile the killer, talk to his high school teacher, and try and catalog the 'warning' signs. Perhaps the appearance of a film like Two Minute Warning, and its ilk, was itself a warning sign.
Being unfamiliar with the source novel of the same name by George La Fountaine, I can't comment on the transition or differences. The movie is recommended for football, disaster movie, and insanity fans, the cast (particularly the two leads) make it quite watchable, and the ensuing mayhem's built-in appeal still keep this baby in print. It's rather nihilistic, even for a disaster movie. The DVD is rather bare bones but looks good enough...like so many films, you can pick it up on the cheap and have money left for popcorn.
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A tense, slow burn
Added 2/2/2009
This film is a slow burner, with almost no action for nearly the entire running time, and then everything goes crazy at the eponymous two minute warning. It has a huge, ensamble cast, led by Heston and Cassavetes as the lead police. Almost every character gets a moment to shine, and when the bullets finally start flying there is a lot of tension as these characters run for cover.
For such a large cast and huge spectacle the film seems really small for a large portion of its running time. Only in the final, action packed minutes does the movie really use its cast and scope to full potential.
This movie is a wonderfully refreshing change from the frenetic action of contemporary film, really drawing out suspense as long as possible. The enigmatic, never clearly seen sniper adds to the tension, and his motives seem to be as an agent of chaos as much as anything else. I highly recommend this for anyone who loves slow-burn thrillers and the style of 1970s cinema.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Not as good as Black Sunday...
Added 4/20/2007
Although "Two-Minute Warning" is still an entertaining movie about a "situation" developing, when a madman prepares to shoot people in a stadium, the movie has some holes in it.
I won't spend too many words about its transfer on DVD, which is standard, but could have been taken better care of.
The holes I mentioned before, are mainly referred to the characters involved in this movie.
Except for some very general hints on who they all are, there is practically no "in-depth" character study whatsoever.
All the characters could have been taken form the street and assembled together at random.
We know nothing about them, except for the rather obvious.
The movie at one point, even goes so far, as to almost become a training documentary, or even a promotional spot for the S.W.A.T.
We never get to truly understand who the heck the "madman" is or wants, or for this matter, what triggered him to such an action.
There is no way to either truly sympathize for his own personal ordeal that pushes him to such folly, nor to really hate him for it.
All we get of him, are very general shots form afar, or seen "through his eyes", but we can't even "hear" his thoughts that might go through his mind at that moment.
While in "Dirty Harry", Andrew Robinson, as the Scorpio Killer, made us love to hate him, for all the obvious reasons, and also because we get to "know" him, in this picture, there seems to be no need to get to know the guy and therefore, we cannot decide what to think about it all.
As with the characters played by Charlton Heston and John Cassavetes, two otherwise very talented actors, we absolutely have no true idea from what kind of a background they stem from, and therefore they are just standing there, wooden, watching and studying.
Also, even though we know that the shooter will at one point or another, take aim and shoot some people, the entire process that leads to the final moment in which it happens, is so dragged by the feet, that when it happens, no one is truly surprised nor really concerned with it anymore.
The poor Jack Klugman (the famous Oscar Madison of TVs "The Odd Couple" and "Quincy"), in one of his last roles, is totally wasted here, delivering very shallow lines and almost reprising a role, similar to the one he played in "The Odd Couple", only a bit more dramatic.
Even Martin Balsam ("The Anderson Tapes", "The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three" and "Murder on the Orient Express"), Brock Peters, Gena Rowlands (watch her in "Gloria"), David Janssen, Walter Pidgeon and Beau Bridges don't manage to save the day in this picture.
This is not a movie I can truly recommend, except maybe, just to compare it in scope to "Black Sunday", which is by far more entertaining and original in its development.
These two pictures watched back-to-back, would make for an interesting case study on how to produce, and not to produce a good movie.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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70's DISASTER MOVIE JUST FOR FUN !!!
Added 4/19/2007
Dont watch this movie looking for any deep meanings about why people act the way they do. This is an action adventure film that they used to call disaster movies in the 70's. Its fun from beginning to end ! Its a movie where you pop a bucket of popcorn , eat a candy bar ,drink a soda and loose yourself for a couple of hours! Enjoy! I did !
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Someone's Going to Get Hurt
Added 11/12/2009
Here's a movie for people who hate football. A psychopath with a high-powered rifle breaks into a huge L.A. stadium just before a championship game, and all hell breaks loose. Well, there's more to it than that. The real violence gets going toward the end of the game (hence the title). The film touches on a few of the personal stories of people watching the game.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Playoff shootout...1970s style
Added 10/12/2009
Underrated 70s disaster movie with another all-star cast. The story is simple: there's a football playoff game in the 90,000+ capacity LA Coliseum and a sniper is on the loose. When the blimp-cam spots him, it's up to the stadium security chief (Charlton Heston) and the SWAT-team leader (John Cassavettes) to stop him before he starts shooting. Who is the sniper? What does he want? Who is the target?
The rest of the characters, predictably, exist to get blown away (or not) by the madman shooter, who remains mysterious throughout the film. (The sniper is limited to first-person shots and long shots as he waits in his nest.) The tension builds...and you know how this is gonna end.
What to say? It was the 1970s, the ratings code was still relatively new, and movies were pushing it. Portrayals of mass murder were becoming more common, and here we have a rather cynical film...quite cynical even by today's standards. We know where it's going. You know the random characters at the stadium---the priest, the gambler, the pickpocket, the bickering couple, the cop---exist as mere sketches before they are relegated to flesh and blood spattering. Even when a fan (a young Beau Bridges) notices the sniper up in his perch, his attempt to warn someone results in an icy confrontation with suspicious and uncaring cops. Even those charged with stopping the killing cannot agree on how to do so, as Heston and Cassavettes bump heads over methods. These scenes, depicting disparity between authority figures either too soft, too gung-ho, or too uncaring, give the film a chilling edge that other entries in the genre either missed or purposely avoided.
We are not treated to a deep study of the sniper, or his motives, which may be more 'old fashioned' in this regard. No long speeches about the political motives, for instance. No boogieman of the day (pick your ethnic terrorist or madman profile). Just sit back and watch the chaos unfold.
Could have been better, though the ending, perhaps still prescient even then, shows what we still do after this kind of thing (back then, mass murder was still relatively 'new'): profile the killer, talk to his high school teacher, and try and catalog the 'warning' signs. Perhaps the appearance of a film like Two Minute Warning, and its ilk, was itself a warning sign.
Being unfamiliar with the source novel of the same name by George La Fountaine, I can't comment on the transition or differences. The movie is recommended for football, disaster movie, and insanity fans, the cast (particularly the two leads) make it quite watchable, and the ensuing mayhem's built-in appeal still keep this baby in print. It's rather nihilistic, even for a disaster movie. The DVD is rather bare bones but looks good enough...like so many films, you can pick it up on the cheap and have money left for popcorn.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
A tense, slow burn
Added 2/2/2009
This film is a slow burner, with almost no action for nearly the entire running time, and then everything goes crazy at the eponymous two minute warning. It has a huge, ensamble cast, led by Heston and Cassavetes as the lead police. Almost every character gets a moment to shine, and when the bullets finally start flying there is a lot of tension as these characters run for cover.
For such a large cast and huge spectacle the film seems really small for a large portion of its running time. Only in the final, action packed minutes does the movie really use its cast and scope to full potential.
This movie is a wonderfully refreshing change from the frenetic action of contemporary film, really drawing out suspense as long as possible. The enigmatic, never clearly seen sniper adds to the tension, and his motives seem to be as an agent of chaos as much as anything else. I highly recommend this for anyone who loves slow-burn thrillers and the style of 1970s cinema.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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