Even though "Straight Time," which opens today at the Coronet Theater, has been tailored to Max's dimensions it's not a small-time movie. Ulu Grosbard,the director,and Alvin Sargent. Edward Bunker and Jeffrey Boam, who wrote the screenplay, have succeeded in making an uncommonly interesting film about a fellow whose significance is entirely negative. It's almost as if the real subject of the movie were all the things Max isn't.

 

This may be to invest "Straight Time" with more purpose than was ever intended, but it is such a leanly constructed, vividly staged film that one seeks to justify the way it compels the attention. The first words we hear in the movie are those of the guards as Max is getting out of prison—"Open the gates"—while the rest of the film is the detailed case history of a man doing his unconscious best to get back in.

 

The movie makes no attempt to explain Max. It simply says that this is the way he is. It requires us to fill in the gaps, and it's the measure of the film that we want to. In the meantime, we watch as Max has his early run-ins with his Los Angeles parole officer, a sadistic, patronizing redneck, marvelously well-played by M. Emmet Walsh, and accept as inevitable his return to life as a holdup man.

 

The film's most surprising and involving sequences are the series of heists that Max carries out, at first solo, then in the company of an old associate, a fellow named Jerry Schue (Harry Dean Stanton), an ex-con, now a paint contractor apparently happily married, who is going out of his mind with the boredom of a settled life that involves a backyard swimming pool and barbecue pit.

 

"Straight Time" makes a concession to convention in the casting of Theresa Russell as the young woman who has a brief affair with Max. Miss Russell, who was so good in "The Last Tycoon," is an extremely appealing actress, with a kind of contemporary authority, but she looks so classy, so understated-chic, that she suggests an upper-class girl whose path would cross Max's only at the beach, or maybe at a singles bar. The two really belong in different movies.

 

The film is beautifully acted by everyone, but especially by Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Walsh, Mr. Stanton and Gary Busey, who plays a junkie friend of Max who cops out at the last minute of a crucial job. "Straight Time" is not a movie to raise the spirits. It is so cool it would leave a chill were it not done with such precision and control that we remain fascinated by a rat, in spite of ourselves.

 

After what seems like an eternity, I can finally put my charred, warped VHS copy to rest and feast on Warner Brother’s beautiful widescreen, crisp transfer of this classic 70s film.Many of you have probably never heard of this film. One of the 1970s true lost masterpieces, Straight Time, despite having one of the top actors of the decade (Dustin Hoffman) starring in it was poorly marketed by Warner Brothers and died a quick death in theaters without so much as a whimper in 1978. So upset was Hoffman, that he actually sued Warner Brothers for what he construed as the mishandling of the picture. After watching the film, you’ll understand his anger.

 

Straight Time contains what might ARGUABLY be Hoffman’s greatest work. Hoffman’s Max Dembo can be thrown in with his finest character work including Benjamin Braddock, Ratzo Rizzo,Lenny Bruce, Ted Kramer, Michael Dorsey and Raymond Babbitt. Max Dembo (Hoffman), a career criminal, is paroled and released from Folsom Maximum Security Prison in California. He goes to Los Angeles. At the beginning, he genuinely and painfully tries to lead a straight and narrow life and conform with the rules and restrictions of his parole.

 

Unfortunately, his parole officer Earl Frank (M. Emmet Walsh) is PRECISELY the type of human Max can’t deal with. Frank is the epitome of American bureaucratic evil. He pretends to be sympathetic hiding behind a sadistic smile and condescending tone but inside he is a cruel racist who loves wielding the power he has over his parolees.

 

 

Frank is, however, willing to budge on one point of his parole; if Max can find a job and a place to live by the end of the week, he will not require him to live at a halfway house.  Max is successful at both and in the process meets a beautiful, innocent girl Jenny Mercer (Theresa Russell) who works at the employment office where Max finds a lead for a job. They slowly begin a relationship. Meanwhile, Max reconnects with one of his old criminal buddies, the loyal but cowardly and weak Willy Darin (Gary Busey).

 

Willy genuinely loves Max like a brother and welcomes him into his home with open arms. Willy’s wife Thelma (a young Kathy Bates) however is blunt and honest with Max. She does NOT want him around her husband for fear of negatively influencing him back into a life of crime. At the time, it is the furthest thing from Max’s mind; he just wants to be part of a family and loved, something that is mentioned frequently throughout that Max has never had. Willy doesn’t need any help from Max as far as bad influences go. Willy is a heroin addict and carelessly fixes up in Max’s room at a fleabag hotel.

 

Frank pays him an unexpected visit and finds evidence that clearly suggests someone shot up in the room. Even though it wasn’t Max and we know that, Frank STILL arrests him and makes him go through the humiliating and degrading process of being booked and processed into L.A. County Jail. From this point on, everything shifts. Max reverts to his true calling and after being released by Frank a few days later, takes his revenge on Frank, breaks his parole and goes right back to crime.

 

He reconnects with Jenny and his honest about what is going on and the danger that she is risking by letting him stay with her. She says she’s willing to take her chances. Max gets back involved with the criminal underworld and starts pulling off robberies “scores” some by himself, some with his trusted friend Jerry Schue (Harry Dean Stanton).

 

Straight Time set the tone for future crime classics that explore the minds of criminals, particularly Michael Mann’s crime classics like Thief and Heat. What sets Straight Time apart from just about every other crime film before or after it is the honesty and detail it pays to the subject matter. It is bleak, hopeless and relentlessly grim. None of the characters you are presented with here are portrayed in a romantic or heroic way that will make you easily empathize with them or understand them.

 

There is no glamour present for these criminals. They don’t live in mansions, wear Armani suits and drive Porsches. All of the criminals in the film, especially Dembo, are unapologetic about what they do and seem to embrace their inevitable fate. Starting to wonder why a gritty, almost documentary like film about criminality as a lifestyle and job not to mention the angry obsessive compulsion about a criminal mind wasn’t well-received by audiences and was yanked out of theaters after just TWO weeks in release?

 

Most Hollywood films prior to 1978 and especially after involving crime and those who perpetuate it, almost always involved endings where you are literally beaten over the head with “A LESSON TO BE LEARNED”, the central figure has a catharsis and seeks redemption, or the central figure is either captured and or killed in the final reel. They also usually involve a heavy amount of psychological background that may or may not help you understand or even “like” these criminals.

 

 

This could very well describe the American New Wave films of the 70s, precisely the reason why it will be the greatest decade ever for American cinema. This was a time in Hollywood where filmmakers dared to make films without heroes, without romance, broke taboos of language, sexuality and behavior and dared to end them unhappily. These were films that were CHARACTER rather than PLOT driven.

 

Straight Time IS the epitome of this mentality. The film and Dembo speeds full ahead to a shattering,self-destructive end that while uncomfortable to watch, is impossible to turn away from. Dembo is intelligent enough to know what is coming because deep down inside, he wants to get caught and go back to prison. 

 

You spot signs of it early on but then it becomes more obvious with each score he pulls. He lingers, he spends too much time in the bank, too much time in the jewelry store; he can never follow the time clock that is preset so as to get out before the cops show up. That is one of the most fascinating aspects of this character. He seems to be enjoying his crime, almost showing off as an ultimate “fuck you” to a society that rejected him despite his best intentions while at the same time wanting to be punished and sent back to jail. 

 

 

Some may say, “Why does the Theresa Russell character stick with this loser? Why is she so attracted to him and nurturing? Why is she such a masochist?” Maybe you don’t understand why Dembo can’t control his obsessive-compulsive anger and exacts revenge on Frank when he has Jenny and something to live for?