The fear of the poor mother and later the wife of the real life completely insane Charles Whitman right before they are murdered by him will really stick in your gut in the scenes before he goes into the tower at the University of Texas in Austin and perceives to create a massive shootout that will kill over a dozen people and wound several dozen more. The bravery of Kurt Russell to take on this role and really act without saying much of anything truly makes him one of the great American acting icons of the past 60 years. Then there's the second key character, overworked cop played by Richard Yñiguez and the events in his life up to his involvement in taking Whitman down.
Films like this are always difficult to watch and rate because you are witnessing a true American tragedy, something that could have been prevented and as discussed here in regards to gun laws. The fact that Whitman was able to walk into a gun store and walk away with as much ammunition as he did horrifying, and we are still having this debate 55 years later. John Forsythe as the police chief is the one to bring it up here and when he says it, you can feel the anger in him as to how easy it is to purchase weapons and ammunition.
What happens here in 100 minutes only took 90 minutes in real life and the fact that people don't get out of the area and into safety boggles the mind. We have seen these stories over and over again hundreds of time since this happened, and it's always difficult to get the ambition to watch a film like this but once you are into it, there's no turning back. What is amazing though is the number of people outside of law enforcement who did what they had to aide the police that day, and we even get to see Ned Beatty, playing a college bookstore employee, out there with his own weapon indicating that he knows a way of how to get into the tower. This is an excellent TV film and one that should be brought up and shown every time there is a debate over the right to bear arms and how to make it tougher for the public to get them.
Films like this are always difficult to watch and rate because you are witnessing a true American tragedy, something that could have been prevented and as discussed here in regards to gun laws. The fact that Whitman was able to walk into a gun store and walk away with as much ammunition as he did horrifying, and we are still having this debate 55 years later. John Forsythe as the police chief is the one to bring it up here and when he says it, you can feel the anger in him as to how easy it is to purchase weapons and ammunition.
What happens here in 100 minutes only took 90 minutes in real life and the fact that people don't get out of the area and into safety boggles the mind. We have seen these stories over and over again hundreds of time since this happened, and it's always difficult to get the ambition to watch a film like this but once you are into it, there's no turning back. What is amazing though is the number of people outside of law enforcement who did what they had to aide the police that day, and we even get to see Ned Beatty, playing a college bookstore employee, out there with his own weapon indicating that he knows a way of how to get into the tower. This is an excellent TV film and one that should be brought up and shown every time there is a debate over the right to bear arms and how to make it tougher for the public to get them.