Straight Time

Spoilers

You have a story of a guy like Max Dembo, a lifelong thieving convict who attempts to go the straight and narrow, and you wonder if there is truly anything that can change him.  1978's STRAIGHT TIME tells such a tale, of someone incapable of living the "American Dream", inevitably returning to his criminal ways.  Inherent flaw? Unhealthy environments? Sin? That last thought was expressed by my wife, as we discussed the film afterward: "God could change him."

This movie does not consider that option.  None of the characters proselytize to Max.  Even for the scenes with him behind bars, no jailhouse reverend appears.   In other words, STRAIGHT TIME is not a redemption story.  Don't cry spoiler if I tell you that Max at the end of the film is no more redeemed than he was at the opening.  This is realistic, the truth for many hard bitten men and women.  Perhaps even if they "got religion" or "found God."  If writer Michael Mann had included a spiritual element to his script, it might've unavoidably reeked of T.V. Movie of the Week sentiment.  Even if in real life many of us would be rooting for such a transformation. The difficulty of that road may also may an interesting story, just don't let any of the schlock meisters who make movies like GOD'S NOT DEAD get wind of that. 

Mann is not credited for his work.  Rather Alvin Sargent, Edward Bunker, and Jeffrey Boam were brought in to rework the script, which was based on Bunker's No Beast So Fierce novel.  I mention this as I saw a lot of qualities in the character of Max Dembo shared with the protagonists of Mann's later THIEF and HEAT.  These are men who've accepted their lot as career criminals, and are prepared to take what comes with such a life, yet possess the same desires as many of us in society, namely the desire to love and be loved.

Max, beautifully portrayed by Dustin Hoffman, has just served six years for armed robbery and is trying to reassimmilate on the outside.  He is not helped by his parole officer, a manipulative slime ball played that reliable character actor who specializes in such scuzzes, M. Emmett Walsh. Nor by Jerry (Harry Dean Stanton) his old partner in crime who has settled into domesticity with a wife and mortgage.  Yet, when his wife steps away, Jerry urgently pleads with his friend (in a great moment) to "get me out of here" and offer him another job.  These guys are fish out of water.

Then there's Jenny (Theresa Russell), a sweet young woman Max meets at an employment agency.  She helps him get a job at a can factory, and before long he's smitten. He's awkward in his attempts at ingratiation and seduction, but his tenderness somehow escapes the crusty exterior.  They eventually live together, and during one fascinating scene share a dialogue of cold, hard honesty, one in which both explain their awareness of the relationship, and the only direction in which it could possibly go.  Max really loves Jenny, and his final action is of both hard recognizance and undiluted love.

Hoffman was the original director of STRAIGHT TIME, but perhaps wisely decided to hand the reins over to longtime friend and collaborator Ulu Grosbard and focus on his performance.  The men both do terrific work and it's a tragedy this film has never received its due as the hard edged, gritty classic it is.  1970s Los Angeles is perfectly captured.  Great cast, too.