Marathon Man (1976)

Directed by John Schlesinger. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider, Laurence Olivier, Marthe Keller, William Devane, Richard Bright, Marc Lawrence, Fritz Weaver, Ben Dova, Lou Gilbert, Tito Goya, Jacques Marin. [R]

Grad student and avid long-distance runner Hoffman gets unwittingly pulled into a deadly labyrinthine plot involving discreditable government agents and Nazi war criminals. Cold, relentless thriller, one of the decade’s most eminent (and intense), recognizes the pitiless depths of evil, the omnipresence of paranoia and menace, and the best way to employ violence in a calculated fashion that avoids being too unsettling for excitement or too gratuitous for dread. Closing in on forty, Hoffman isn’t a likely candidate as either an athlete or a PhD student, but his Method style pays off on the agonizing road he must take in the second hour; Olivier’s sinister impassivity as a Josef Mengele-esque Nazi doctor marks his last great film performance. Takes too long to tie together the cross-cutting plot threads at the outset, so it works best upon revisit when clarity can be achieved in advance, and all the plot holes are more easily forgiven (if not overlooked). Tread carefully if trips to the dentist make your blood curdle. Screenwriter William Goldman adapted his own novel. Look for John Heard in an uncredited bit part on the college campus.

84/100