Marathon Man is not a very good movie. The seventies, which were cinema's greatest age of thrillers, produced many movies that could teach this hodgepodge mess of a movie a thing or two about pacing, editing and storytelling. I don't even know where to begin with this absurd story.
Dustin Hoffman, around 39 when he starred in the movie, implausibly plays Babe Levy, a college student. Throughout the movie the awkward age of the actor sticks like a sore thumb. But the character himself is bizarre. He's running for the marathon, although that seems to have nothing to do with the plot per se (the one moment when he uses his training to escape a bad guy, his pursuer, clearly in worse physical shape than him, nearly catches him). Levy is traumatized by the suicide of his father, a historian who fell in disgrace because of McCarthy's communist witch hunts. It's an interesting background, but it seems to belong in another character and another movie. And his brother, Doc (played by Roy Scheider), is a secret agent working for a governmental organization that somehow keeps track of Nazi criminals.
The action starts when the brother of a notorious Nazi fugitive, Dr. Szell, dies in an accident in New York. Szell's brother, another Nazi, was stupid enough to go around shouting racist slurs at a Jew in a Jewish neighbourhood, attracting his ire and causing a moronic car accident. I don't presume to be able to get inside the head of Nazi fugitives, but I have serious difficulty believing one would be attracting so much attention on himself in the middle of New York, especially after he just retrieved a tin can full of diamonds to be delivered to his brother in Uruguay. Marathon Man is the proverbial thriller where you have to leave your brain at the door to enjoy it, proud precursor of Michael Bay. It pains me to write this of the director of Midnight Cowboy and the screenwriter of All The President's Men, but that's the hard truth.
So Szell travels to New York to retrieve the rest of his diamonds, and this is where the story gets really confusing. Doc's agency apparently works with Szell, who gives them information on other Nazis in return for being left alone. What is never made clear is what is Doc's role in all this, what are the feelings of his parter, Janeway, over his murder since he's obviously a participant in it, or why Szell uses a student called Elsa to watch over Babe. It's not so much that the movie is confused, rather it's confused, it doesn't understand itself, it rushes into each scene instead of lingering over a single dialogue that explains anything.
In the end, Marathon Man is just a collection of exciting scenes barely glued together by the ghost of a plot. We have exciting scenes galore: Babe trapped inside his bathroom as thugs try to break into it; a woman chasing Szell as she recognises him from Auschwitz; the infamous torture scene with dentist instruments; and more, lots more. It's just a pity that none segues rationally into the next. This is pure escapism, but so was The Day of the Jackal and The Parallax View, and they're infinitely better written and edited. It's really disturbing to imagine that this movie was written by William Goldman, who the same year rightfully won the Oscar for All The President's Men. It seems he only has enough talent for one intelligent script per year.
Dustin Hoffman was far from amazing in this, certainly not as great as in All The President's Men or Lenny (1974). Roy Scheider, William Davane and Marthe Keller give efficient performances. The only shining moment acting-wise is Laurence Olivier, who gives one of his most chilling performances as Dr. Szell, the Nazi dentist. Olivier gave many great performances in his final decade, and this role is up there with his work in Sleuth and The Boys from Brazil. Everything I heard about him in this movie is absolutely true, and he remains the best reason to watch this movie.
Dustin Hoffman, around 39 when he starred in the movie, implausibly plays Babe Levy, a college student. Throughout the movie the awkward age of the actor sticks like a sore thumb. But the character himself is bizarre. He's running for the marathon, although that seems to have nothing to do with the plot per se (the one moment when he uses his training to escape a bad guy, his pursuer, clearly in worse physical shape than him, nearly catches him). Levy is traumatized by the suicide of his father, a historian who fell in disgrace because of McCarthy's communist witch hunts. It's an interesting background, but it seems to belong in another character and another movie. And his brother, Doc (played by Roy Scheider), is a secret agent working for a governmental organization that somehow keeps track of Nazi criminals.
The action starts when the brother of a notorious Nazi fugitive, Dr. Szell, dies in an accident in New York. Szell's brother, another Nazi, was stupid enough to go around shouting racist slurs at a Jew in a Jewish neighbourhood, attracting his ire and causing a moronic car accident. I don't presume to be able to get inside the head of Nazi fugitives, but I have serious difficulty believing one would be attracting so much attention on himself in the middle of New York, especially after he just retrieved a tin can full of diamonds to be delivered to his brother in Uruguay. Marathon Man is the proverbial thriller where you have to leave your brain at the door to enjoy it, proud precursor of Michael Bay. It pains me to write this of the director of Midnight Cowboy and the screenwriter of All The President's Men, but that's the hard truth.
So Szell travels to New York to retrieve the rest of his diamonds, and this is where the story gets really confusing. Doc's agency apparently works with Szell, who gives them information on other Nazis in return for being left alone. What is never made clear is what is Doc's role in all this, what are the feelings of his parter, Janeway, over his murder since he's obviously a participant in it, or why Szell uses a student called Elsa to watch over Babe. It's not so much that the movie is confused, rather it's confused, it doesn't understand itself, it rushes into each scene instead of lingering over a single dialogue that explains anything.
In the end, Marathon Man is just a collection of exciting scenes barely glued together by the ghost of a plot. We have exciting scenes galore: Babe trapped inside his bathroom as thugs try to break into it; a woman chasing Szell as she recognises him from Auschwitz; the infamous torture scene with dentist instruments; and more, lots more. It's just a pity that none segues rationally into the next. This is pure escapism, but so was The Day of the Jackal and The Parallax View, and they're infinitely better written and edited. It's really disturbing to imagine that this movie was written by William Goldman, who the same year rightfully won the Oscar for All The President's Men. It seems he only has enough talent for one intelligent script per year.
Dustin Hoffman was far from amazing in this, certainly not as great as in All The President's Men or Lenny (1974). Roy Scheider, William Davane and Marthe Keller give efficient performances. The only shining moment acting-wise is Laurence Olivier, who gives one of his most chilling performances as Dr. Szell, the Nazi dentist. Olivier gave many great performances in his final decade, and this role is up there with his work in Sleuth and The Boys from Brazil. Everything I heard about him in this movie is absolutely true, and he remains the best reason to watch this movie.