Take 1976's Two-Minute Warning as an example. The caliber of names is certainly impressive, but more on that later. The premise is disaster-like, but it's more of the man-made variety. In fact, the movie and its premise -- a sniper setting up shop at a sporting event and opening fire -- was so controversial that it has been almost entirely buried over the last 30-plus years. To air it on TV, an additional 30 minutes were added to make the lone sniper a diversionary tactic for a heist in Los Angeles, supposedly lessening the blow and the impact of what's going on. The original theatrical version is a mixed bag overall though with a dull first hour, great middle half hour, and a finale and ending that rival the most uncomfortable scenes you'll ever watch.
Hosting a championship football game (supposedly between L.A. and Baltimore?), the L.A. Coliseum has opened its doors to some 90,000 fans who have turned out to see the contest. VIPs including politicians both locally and nationally have come out for the job, making Captain Peter Holly's (Charlton Heston) job that much more difficult maintaining security. Near halftime though, one of the countless cameras around the stadium spot a man with a rifle in the tower over the main entrance, a location that is impossible to get to without being detected. The high-powered automatic rifle will have free reign over the stadium, and no is seemingly safe. A SWAT team headed by Sgt. Button (John Cassavetes) is called in to handle the situation with Holly, but can they get the job done before the lone sniper opens fire on the thousands of targets in front of him?
This is a difficult movie to review, and I try to only use that complaint every month or so. It isn't so much a movie as a faux-documentary from director Larry Peerce, giving you the feeling of being a fly on the wall as this high-tension situation continues to escalate. Peerce's movie follows a handful of characters pre-game and as the game develops, giving us just enough info about them to get interested in them (hopefully that is, the attempt is hit or miss). Much of the movie was shot during the NFL season in 1975, also prominently featuring a Pac-10 game between USC and Stanford. The problem is that much of the story shows a quick scene with the cast then cuts quickly to the football game and then the police and SWAT efforts to handle the sniper. With that filming technique, the first 45-60 minutes have a disjointed feel that makes it difficult to actually get into any rhythm with the movie and keep up with it.
Thankfully the movie finds the right gear at about the hour mark once Cassavetes' SWAT team arrives on the scene, the anxiety and tension building as the game nears its close. SPOILERS STOP READING SPOILERS Despite the best efforts of the police and SWAT, the sniper does open fire, causing mass chaos as people start dropping dead all over the Coliseum, the deaths portrayed graphically and brutally. Pieces start to click together as to why the all-star cast is there....as targets and little else. Seeing movie stars shot aside, the finale as the sniper opens fire is one of the most troubling, uncomfortable extended scenes I've ever watched. Imagine 90,000 freaked out people all scrambling to stay alive, not quite sure what's going on. People are trampled and thrown, pushed aside like rag dolls as survival takes over above all else. The second hour most definitely makes up for the struggles of the first hour, a truly memorable ending.
Let's talk celebrities here for a bit, typically a trademark of the disaster movie. The description of the movie didn't do it justice, making it seem like Heston and Cassavetes worked closely together to stop the sniper. Well, sort of, but not really. Heston was in quite a few disaster movies so while it isn't a great part for him, he still brings his typical professionalism to the part. The same goes for Cassavetes, always intense and always very watchable. Who else? Lots more. Martin Balsam plays McKeever, the Coliseum event coordinator, Beau Bridges as a father who brought his wife and two kids to the game, David Janssen and Gena Rowlands as a bickering couple going through a bitter fight, Jack Klugman as a gambler who needs his bet to stand or he'll be murdered by his bookie, Mitch Ryan as the priest sitting alongside him, Brock Peters as a Coliseum employee, and Walter Pidgeon as an aging pickpocket working the crowd.
More than the cast, the uncomfortable premise is the star here. All it takes is one lunatic to decide to do this, not some huge, elaborate plan that takes terrorists years to plan. It is a reasonably easy thing to do, and anyone who has been to a sporting event can appreciate the terror in the situation. The sniper doesn't care who he hits, just that he hits something. There's so much going on here that just wouldn't work now in 2011. Can you imagine any stadium -- much less the well-known Coliseum -- opening its doors to a movie depicting mass murder? I'd say N-O. The movie works at its best in those moments, a feeling of realism, of pure terror and fear racking your body.
The story builds and builds, and thankfully the ending knows how far to push it. The sniper is never actually shown in close-up (we see glimpses of him, get a vague sense of what he looks like), and maybe most appropriate...his motivations or reasons are never given. He's a nut, going on a suicide mission that will have only one ending; his death. Cassavetes' SWAT leader delivers a cynical but ultimately honest brief of how the incident will be portrayed, appropriate for a late 1970s movie. The ending doesn't go for the jugular, just focusing on the emotion, Balsam's McKeever sitting in the empty stadium in the aftermath, wondering exactly what happened. The first hour is bad, but the second hour is that good to counter. Stick with this one.
Two-Minute Warning <---trailer (1976): ***/****
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