Two-Minute Warning (1976)

Director:  Larry Peerce

Writers:  George LaFountaine, Edward Hume

Composer:  Charles Fox

Starring:  Charlton Heston, John Cassavetes, Martin Balsam, Beau Bridges, Marilyn Hassett, David Janssen, Jack Klugman, Gena Rowlands, Walter Pidgeon, Brock Peters, David Groh, Mitchell Ryan, Joe Kapp, Pamela Bellwood, Andy Sidaris, Robert Ginty, Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford, Dick Enberg, Merv Griffin, Susan Backlinie

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  91,000 people. 33 exit gates. One Sniper...

Plot:  A crazed sniper is set to kill spectators at an L.A. Coliseum football championship game and the police races against time to eliminate him.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Yeah.

When you watch this you need to make sure there are no interruptions and nothing to disturb you.  Give yourself to the movie and go for a ride.  If you do stop for a break or someone interrupts you, the tension is lost and so is the momentum that has been building since the opening minutes.  This flick is just about two hours and the way the director builds the tension is something all aspiring directors and editors need to study.  I was hooked from the get go and it paid off.  It does drop a little in tension once the S.W.A.T. team shows up.  It wasn't until after it was over that I thought that might've been deliberate because the final minutes when the bullets go flyin', it's off the charts carnage.  Mofos are dying.  It would be interesting to see how it would play out if the tension building never stopped.  It might be too much for some people.  The violence is pretty damn harsh for the mid-70s.  I wonder how it played with audiences.

The performances are solid and it's got quite the cast.  Director Peerce and company do a marvelous job of setting up the large cast of characters, giving them all enough screen time to define who they are.  Naturally, they're not going to go too deep with them but we at least need to know where they stand so that when the shit goes down, you might know and like them just enough to care if they are killed...and you just know some of them are going to snuff it.  It hit me early on that despite the nearly single location setting of the entire movie, this is playing out like the big budget, all-star cast disaster movies that were in vogue at the time.  This is a fine flick.  I'm just sorry I waited all the years to get around to it.