Movie review – “Straight Time” (1978) ****

Unexpected gem, an example of the famous 70s cinema of just letting talented people go on to it. Three cheers for Dustin Hoffman, too, for playing such a little scum bucket lead – every time you think “oh, he’s playing for our sympathy here” the film turns around and then shows that Hoffman doesn’t really deserve our sympathy and he doesn’t play for it. For instance, Kathy Baker asks him to stay away from old mate Gary Busey because she’s worried that Hoffman will turn out to be a bad influence and you think “poor Dusty” – but then it turns out Baker was 100% right, he is a bad influence. And while M Emmett Walsh’s parole officer (a marvellous performance) is a prick who richly deserves being beaten and chained to a fence with his pants down (a marvellous scene), Hoffman falls back into a life of crime very quickly. He picks up Theresa Russell, who is seems willing to stick with him no matter what but she still dumps her (Russell is stunning but comes across as a bit bland so it makes sense she would enjoy hanging out with Hoffman – of course, this may just be bad acting but I’ll give Russell the benefit of the doubt).

The film feels structured more like a novel – a series of events and incidents rather than a cohesive whole (you could argue his relationship with Russell is the “arc”). But it really works, maybe because so many of those events and incidents are memorable: Hoffman automatically lying all the time, Gary Busey getting angry at his son when his son playfully smacks him one, Hoffman suggesting to Russell that they just do a runner when he can’t pay for the dinner (he doesn’t want her to pay), Hoffman luring Harry Dean Stanton back to a life of crime, Walsh’s awful cavalier treatment of Hoffman keeping in gaol for a week for no reason other than to be a prick, the tense robbery scene. Michael Mann knew Bunker and you can see some of this in Heat, especially a scene where Hoffman is driving with his girlfriend and stops off to do something – which is to kill someone. A film that should be better known.