Jack Lemmon delivers an impassioned, Best Actor Oscar winning performance as Harry Stoner, a middle aged man out of step in the L.A. of the early to mid-1970s. He's awash in memories, both good and bad, and tries to shove ideas of morality aside while dealing with this mid-life crisis. A veteran of the garment industry, he realizes that his business is just not doing well, and has to make a tough decision regarding the deliberate torching of his building for insurance purposes.
The film itself is fairly good, and reasonably compelling, but ultimately, on the whole, it's not quite as interesting as its main character, and Lemmon just acts his heart out. He's well supported by Jack Gilford, as his business partner Phil, Laurie Heineman as a free-spirited hitchhiker who never seems to have a specific destination in mind, Norman Burton as a business associate, Patricia Smith as Harry's wife, William Hansen as aged employee Meyer, and especially busy 70s character actor Thayer David as a professional arsonist. Jack has some particularly fine scenes with Gilford and Heineman.
Your heart just goes out to this guy, a person who's just trying to get by and has to face some unpleasant facts about where his life has led him.
The film is written & produced by Steve Shagan, and directed by John G. Avildsen, and they approach this material with sensitivity and understanding. It's slowly paced, and may not resolve itself quite enough to suit some viewers, but it provides a decent story, complete with music by Marvin Hamlisch and cinematography by James Crabe. It's R rated, with some use of profanity and some use of sex, but it's not a "hard R" sort of film, so it will have fairly broad appeal.
Still, it will speak more eloquently to adults, when they've had a chance to look back at their own lives and wonder about their own choices made.
Seven out of 10.
The film itself is fairly good, and reasonably compelling, but ultimately, on the whole, it's not quite as interesting as its main character, and Lemmon just acts his heart out. He's well supported by Jack Gilford, as his business partner Phil, Laurie Heineman as a free-spirited hitchhiker who never seems to have a specific destination in mind, Norman Burton as a business associate, Patricia Smith as Harry's wife, William Hansen as aged employee Meyer, and especially busy 70s character actor Thayer David as a professional arsonist. Jack has some particularly fine scenes with Gilford and Heineman.
Your heart just goes out to this guy, a person who's just trying to get by and has to face some unpleasant facts about where his life has led him.
The film is written & produced by Steve Shagan, and directed by John G. Avildsen, and they approach this material with sensitivity and understanding. It's slowly paced, and may not resolve itself quite enough to suit some viewers, but it provides a decent story, complete with music by Marvin Hamlisch and cinematography by James Crabe. It's R rated, with some use of profanity and some use of sex, but it's not a "hard R" sort of film, so it will have fairly broad appeal.
Still, it will speak more eloquently to adults, when they've had a chance to look back at their own lives and wonder about their own choices made.
Seven out of 10.