Some random thoughts:
* I enjoyed this a lot more on second viewing, on the big screen at the Egyptian - it helped seeing it in a packed cinema with enthusiastic fans.
* Ryan O'Neal is very good - it takes a while to get used to Mr Handsome in an action film but it helped viewing the film a second time, when I was used to him - he had the right level of determination and aloofness - there's not a lot of fire and tension in the performance, but it is effective.
* Isabelle Adjani isn't so great - she looks the part, but struggles with her words.
* Bruce Dern is a lot of fun - now I've read his memoir I can't look at him without thinking of him jogging to and from set.
* Ronee Blakely is extremely effective and her death scene is the best bit in the film because it's so shocking.
* I got confused by some of the story... Dern gets a gang to hire O'Neal so he can bust O'Neal... but O'Neal turns down the gang... then Dern talks to O'Neal, and O'Neal takes the job, is that right? I feel this confusion, in addition to O'Neal's casting, is what contributed to the film's underwhelming performance at the US box office.
* alternate castings that would've worked in this film... (this is a game I like to play) - well, McQueen and Bronson turned it down, and I can't see Pacino, Beatty, Hoffman or Nicholson do it - Burt Reynolds too jokey (but you know something, he would've worked). Paul Newman might have done it because it involved cars. Eastwood. Sean Connery. Hackman.
*Last car chase especially outstanding.
*I feel Hill's direction may not have been sufficiently stylised. Needed more music and artiness, to go with the story. I feel he fixed this on The Warriors.
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