Last Updated on July 27, 2021
By ERIC RED
SEE
RED’S IMDb PROFILE HERE
TWO
MINUTE WARNING
(1976)
Director:
Larry Peerce.
Writers:
Edward Hume.
Based on the novel by George La Fountaine Sr.
Cast:
Charlton Heston, John
Cassavates.
A
sniper is loose at a packed Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during a big
football game. When a television news crew spots the deadly gunman perched
in the tower, they call in law enforcement. A bad ass SWAT team tactical
unit commander (John Cassavetes) faces off against an indecisive police
Captain (Charlton Heston) about how to take the hidden sniper out before the
maniac starts popping off a stadium of oblivious sports fans like fish in a
barrel. But they need to neutralize the rifleman before the thousands of
fans in the arena get wise and widespread panic ensues. Guess what?
Not
every picture I recommend is a great film, but sometimes there is great
stuff in films that don’t make the cut. “TWO-MINUTE WARNING” is one of
those. The reason I like this flawed but often taut, gripping and startling
thriller is simple…it’s the mean machine of a movie monster at the center of
the story in the character of the sniper, a unique engine of terror rarely
utilized in movies. There is never any motivation or back-story for the
barely seen gunman, keeping him frighteningly unexplained.
Early
on, the sniper is all filmed from an effective first person P.O.V. He’s
just a clean-cut guy on a roof with a rifle. Suspense is ratcheted up by us
often not knowing when he going to hit, but knowing he can squeeze the
trigger at any moment. The pic was ahead of its time in the linear,
stripped down situational approach to these aspects of the story. As long
as the sniper is on screen, and often when he is not, and the picture
focuses on the tense tactical operation of the SWAT guys to kill him, the
film is on sure, gritty and efficient exploitation movie footing. Too bad
they didn’t cut the rest of the crap out.
The
script has the clean, tense setup of people trapped in a contained setting
against a monster–SWAT team vs. sniper in stadium–that I’m a sucker for.
If only they had done more with it they’d have had a classic, but what they
have is pretty good. And good and bloody, with plenty of high impact bullet
wound splatter.
John Cassavetes, one of my favorite actors, has one of his best commercial
movie roles as the bad ass no bullshit hard-nosed SWAT Commander. In the
story, the police Captain played by Charlton Heston is in charge of the
district but has no clear rank over the SWAT guys with their own chain of
command, leading to frictions between the two.
It’s a
strong conflict over dispatching the sniper with efficiency at the risk of
threatening civilians but there’s no question which side the audience on,
because in an exploitation film we want the motherfucker taken out. The
audience has his back, and performance wise, Cassavates blows mamby pamby
cop Heston off the screen every time. This was one of Cassavetes’ best 70’s
performances, the other being the supremely evil bad guy in “THE FURY,”
which I also reviewed on the site.
Lots
of neat moments in the picture. A chilling and bloody opening scene has the
sniper picks off a random cyclist from a hotel window with a high-powered
rifle before his victim’s wife’s horrified eyes… There’s a few bracing
shootouts, one involving a memorable P.O.V. shot through the telescopic
sight of one of the SWAT guys’ M-16’s that pans across the tower to spot the
sniper aiming directly into camera before BAM! the cop gets blown away…
There
is an effective Hitchcockian subplot with Beau Bridges as a father who spots
the sniper and has to leave his family as he tries to warn the authorities,
only to get arrested by them to avoid causing a panic. The father’s terror
and frustration, by seeing the sniper but not being able to tell his wife
and kids, by having to leave them, then being stopped from getting back to
his family by the misguided police, are made believable and empathetic by
Bridges. It is the only B story in the film that works…
Now for the bad, and
alas there is much of it. This was the tail end of the Universal Disaster
Movie era of “EARTHQUAKE” and “AIRPORT ’77,” and the dismal formula of
casting B and C level TV actors in cardboard supporting roles for dubious
marquee value. The secondary characters in “TWO-MINUTE WARNING” are a stale
chum bucket of cheesy clichés even by ‘70’s standards. In the stadium
stands, we get a gambler in trouble with the mob seated next to a football
fan Irish priest, a quarterback with bad knees, a middle-aged married couple
struggling with their relationship, a nice young Jewish doctor in blooming
romance with a lovely Shiksa sitting next to him, an elderly pickpocket
(wait, wasn’t there one in “THE TOWERING INFERNO?”) etc. ad nauseum. Kill
me now.
These
TV movie scenes are teeth grindingly flat and drag the picture down. It
could have been a comedy. It’s almost like the movie was made by two
people. What were they thinking? Probably, they wanted us to wonder who is
going to survive, but we really don’t give a shit. All we care about is
Cassavetes’ SWAT hard ass bitchslapping that pussy cop Heston and going in
with his boys and blowing the fuck out of the insane Mofo with the rifle on
the tower. Fortunately, John and Charlton are game and that’s enough. And
the movie has Martin Balsam, who is always welcome.
The
director, Larry Peerce, is not a genre guy, but does a solid job
orchestrating the action and suspense during the “good” movie. The mise-en-scene
of the sniper is dynamically photographed, with glimpses of the gunman shot
from many vantage points of people in the stadium, creating a strong sense
of P.O.V. immediacy and jeopardy in the picture. Editing during these
sections of the movie are nice and tight. The sound mix in particular is
very effective, using big and visceral sounds of the football game, crowd
and gunshots for maximum impact. The producer, Edward S. Feldman, a few
years later produced both “THE HITCHER” and “NEAR DARK” and gave me my first
jobs in the industry.
Funny
story about that. While I was living in Austin, Texas after I’d written
“THE HITCHER” and was trying to sell it, I sent a query letter to Phil
Feldman in Hollywood because he produced ‘THE WILD BUNCH.” I figured he’d
be the right guy to look at the script, right? The letter got delivered by
accident to the wrong Feldman, being Ed, who wrote me back and said he’d
look at it. The rest is history. Yes, it is a convoluted path to getting a
picture made in Hollywood. Was then. Is now.
So the
bottom line is for all its faults, when it works, “TWO MINUTE WARNING” hits
as hard as a bullet between the eyes. To date, it’s the only sniper movie
that got it right. Next month’s review, “THE PRINCESS DIARIES.” Just
kidding.
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