Two-Minute Warning

I really had a blast watching 1976's TWO-MINUTE WARNING, a mash-up of '70s disaster pics and paranoia thrillers.  Before we even get to the surprisingly brutal, ultraviolent climax, we'll see Jack Klugman held by his ankles outside a hotel window,  Charleton Heston hesitate to use guns, and Gena Rowlands accept some mysterious hooch from the guy sitting behind her at a football game.  Also, schlockmeister Andy Sidaris directing the TV broadcast of that game (which he actually did in the '70s). Klugman swearing.  Merv Griffin singing the national anthem.  

In other words, total cheese.  An (mostly) all-star affair where distinguished actors are taking a paycheck.  This would certainly be true of John Casavettes, who does not share any scenes with his wife/leading lady Rowlands.  Lots of relational drama before we get to the good stuff - the police and S.W.A.T. strategizing to take down a sniper perched above the scoreboard at the L.A. Coliseum during "Championship X" (they didn't get permission to call it the Super Bowl?) between Baltimore and Los Angeles.  Once Heston and Cassevettes break out the aviator shades, we're in for a sufficiently tense ride.

Director Larry Pearce never gives us a good look at the sniper.  We learn absolutely nothing about him or his motives.  This was a problem for several viewers but I choose to look at TWO-MINUTE WARNING as pure popcorn.  An exercise in '70s nihilism. Not any sort of social or political drama. The human drama is barely above the level of The Love Boat and maybe was unnecessary but everything serves that incredible climax.  We're not meeting these characters, which also include a dad played by Beau Bridges, a middle-aged couple played by Rowlands and David Janssen, and a pickpocket played by Walter Pidgeon, for no reason.  The chaos that erupts at the end is some of the best staged mayhem I've seen in a movie.

Edward Humes' script unsurprisingly has some issues.  Like why do those cops act so funny when Bridges alerts them to the figure in question he saw through his binoculars? Some sort of conspiracy?  I did like the friendship that develops between Klugman, who plays a compulsive gambler, and a Catholic priest played by Mitchell Ryan.  Their final scene was very effective.