CLASSIC CINEMA REVIEW: “Straight Time” (1978): Navigating a Crooked Path

After being released on parole, a burglar (Dustin Hoffman) attempts to go straight, get a regular job, and “play by the rules”. He soon finds himself back in jail at the hands of a power-hungry parole officer. When he is released again, he assaults the parole officer, steals his car, and bolts back into a life of crime.

Film Review

by John Smistad

Are some men born to be criminals? Is it in their DNA? A destiny to which they are inexorably fated? I don’t know. However, I don’t find the notion utterly preposterous.

Are some women helpless in their attraction to these guys? To always see the good. To believe that they will change. That they will be the ones to save this wayward soul from a life lived on the run. Once more, don’t ask me. And yet, again it seems that there is ample evidence to support this premise, as well.

Screen legend Dustin Hoffman and Theresa Russell as ex-con Max and working drone Jenny provide a perfect example of this desperately dysfunctional dynamic in the dramatic crime thriller “Straight Time”. Ya root like hell for this pair of society’s fringe dwellers to cash in the chips always weighing them down and making a go of it together. When all along you know this is about as far from a fairy tale romance as it gets.

Still…maybe?

After publicly humiliating a power-drunk prick of a parole officer on an L.A. freeway, it’s not looking too good for a rosy future for these two unlikely lovebirds.

Soon Max is savaged by his true nature, pent-up rage unleashed and unbridled, a career criminal succumbing to a primordial purpose. Hoffman gives us a fury-fueled spirit possessed in these scenes. There is a chilling look of demons seldom dormant in Max’s eyes as he rants and ravages, stealing whatever he wants. From whomever he chooses. As much as he can gather in the frenzied seconds before that inevitable intrusion of law enforcement. Consequences ever are damned.

Take. Or be taken.

These are the only options Max has ever known. Or ever will.

Either choice, offering precious little time to “go straight”.

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