A great film. Fantastic performances, amazing camera work. 70s NYC at its grittiest, Hackman at his grumpiest. RIP.
Of course must be mentioned that this set the bar for chase scenes, so well done and great payoffs.
Obviously some of the cop stuff hasn’t aged well and doesn’t add much but I think it’s easy enough to look past it.
Roy Scheider was great, need to find more of his movies.
Does feel like a material pivot for the series (plus that’s what I’ve been told) which is great. This is definitely top tier of popcorn action movies. The Burj scene(s) were fantastic, though the characters didn’t seem to give the craziness of it the attention it should have gotten?
Obviously it’s hard to come up with bad guy motivations but I really felt like there wasn’t a lot here to get behind or be invested in. This is just about…
Laura said "let's watch that movie with the house in Lincoln Park you're always pointing out when we walk by". Well, it turns out the house plays a much smaller role in the movie than justifies me me annoyingly pointing it out multiple times. But it is very cool 80s-townhouse-architecture that provides a striking location for the opening (and it's actually in Old Town, but close enough).
What does hold up from my memory watching it as a teen is…
Better than I remembered. Hoffman was fantastic, they didn’t give him as much time as they should have. Simon Pegg added a lot more value than anticipated.
I loved the lip reading in the beginning.
I hate the face masking.
