Two-Minute Warning.

Police work to stop a sniper from firing on the Super B... ah, "championship."

Release Date: Nov. 12, 1976. Running Time: 115 minutes. Screenplay: Edward Hume. Based on the novel by George LaFountaine. Producer: Edward S. Feldman. Director: Larry Peerce.


THE PLOT:

It's Super Bowl Sunday (well, "championship game day," since the NFL didn't grace this movie with its stamp of approval), and the Los Angeles Memorial Colosseum is playing to a sold-out crowd of almost 100,000. VIPs include the Los Angeles mayor, a Saudi prince, and potentially the President of the United States. The crowd settles in to enjoy what's expected to be a close game. But they aren't the only ones watching...

A sniper has set up a position above the stadium, by the scoreboard. When the Goodyear Blimp catches him on camera, police captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston) identifies his rifle as a semi-automatic - creating the potential for disaster. He calls in Sgt. Chris Button (John Cassavetes)'s SWAT team, but insists no one take a shot until he gives the order. As he observes, if the SWAT team doesn't bring the man down with their first shot, then the shooter will have time to unload any number of rounds on anyone at the game.

A sold-out game: Roughly 100,000 probable targets...

CHARACTERS:

Capt. Holly: It's unusual to see Charlton Heston cast as the voice of caution, but that is largely his role here. From the moment he arrives on scene, Capt. Holly's focus is on managing the situation, doing all he can to avoid provoking the sniper while still preparing for action. He joins in with the SWAT assault at the end... which might just be the least plausible thing in the movie. I can't imagine that a real SWAT leader would even entertain allowing a man on the operation who spends most of his working hours at a desk, and his participation in the climax seems to exist largely to allow Heston a "hero moment."

Sgt. Button: John Cassavetes projects a more authentic presence than Heston, and his is actually the better role. Though Capt. Holly all but accuses him of being trigger-happy, the sergeant is proved right in almost everything he says. When Holly insists on taking no action until the VIPs have been escorted out, given that they're the most probable targets, Button scoffs: "Everybody's a probable target."  He believes that they should take the first good shot they get, to make sure they stop the shooter before he can act, and he doesn't hide his annoyance when he briefs his men and lets them know that the situation hasn't yet been officially turned over to them.

Sam McKeever: The stadium manager (Martin Balsam) is a somewhat incoherent character. He calls Capt. Holly immediately when the blimp spots the sniper... only to refuse to allow any evacuation of the stadium. After the stadium's maintenance chief (Brock Peters) is hurt, he is insistent on getting a doctor to him... But the entire reason the man was in harm's way was McKeever's own pointless antagonism toward him. Is he meant to be a responsible person in authority or a TV-level Pompous Bureaucrat? The film can't make up its mind from one scene to the next - meaning that when he seems on the verge of tears in the final minutes, it's impossible to feel much empathy.

Mike Ramsay: An almost startlingly young Beau Bridges plays a man attending the game with his wife and two young sons. Early scenes establish that he has a fondness for looking through binoculars... a habit that results in him spying the sniper. In most films, he would be an audience identification figure, the ordinary person caught up in extraordinary events. However, early scenes establish him as rather a jerk, snapping at his wife (Pamela Bellwood) for little reason and smacking one of his sons for wanting to buy a hat before the game. Mike's nasty moments are fairly pointless in the overall story, and just serve to make him difficult to empathize with when the action gets moving.

Stu Sandman: Empathy also doesn't overflow for Stu (Jack Klugman), a gambler who is so badly in debt to a mobster that his life literally depends on the outcome of this game. Since he's first seen throwing his mob-borrowed money around like confetti, our initial impression of him is not a positive one - though he is the focus of one of the film's more bizarre moments, when mobsters dangle him out a window in broad daylight, apparently unbothered at the potential for witnesses.  All of that said, Klugman's comic timing boosts his scenes in the second half, as he anxiously (and profanely) watches the game while seated next to a priest (Mitchell Ryan).

Steve/Janet: David Janssen and Gena Rowlands, as a bickering middle-aged couple, come across as more relatable than most of the other potential victims. Not because they're particularly likable - They aren't, with Rowlands a little too fond of liquor and Janssen terminally grumpy. But the two actors fit together on screen, and the performers maintain a sense of mutual fondness even as they snipe at each other, which makes them come across better than most of the cast.

The Pickpocket: Walter Pidgeon plays an aging pickpocket stealing his way through the crowded stadium. There's nothing particularly noteworthy about the role. The man has no name, and barely any dialogue. But Pidgeon's presence, in his next-to-last role in his last major film, merits at least a passing note.

The Sniper: We never comprehend why the sniper is doing this. He's introduced through POV shots, with us seeing the world through his eyes. We see his gun in close-up, or peer through his rifle scope as he cycles through possible targets. We don't even see his face until the end, and the only line of dialogue he receives is entirely unilluminating. Contemporary critics hated this aspect of the film, but I think it's the movie's best element. Any motive would simply reduce him as a threat (for proof, witness the network television version, which shows us his face - a lot - and gives him a motive. A really, really silly motive).

A family man (Beau Bridges) sees something unexpected through his binoculars.

THOUGHTS:

"Don't try to get logical about these kooks. You never know who he's after. Half the time, he doesn't know... Maybe he's waiting to see what happens in the game - like who wins or who loses. That's how crazy these people are."
-Sgt Button (John Cassavetes) with the best answer as to the Sniper's motivations.

Though ostensibly a thriller, Two-Minute Warning follows the disaster formula to a "T." A disparate cast of all-star victims are gathered in a setting where calamity might strike at any moment. Each victim has his or her own little story, and those stories fill the long build to sudden carnage. It's a disaster flick in all but name, with a sniper in place of a fire, floor, or earthquake, and it's unsurprising that it's often lumped in with that genre.

One aspect of the film that stands out is how unlikable most of the characters are. Beau Bridges' young father has obvious anger issues, which he takes out on his children more than once during the movie. Jack Klugman's gambler is a loser who spends the money he's borrowed from the mob to procure a young lover whom he paws like a possession. David Janssen and Gena Rowlands spend most of their screen time arguing, with anything engaging coming solely from the performers and not the script. Even the obligatory priest (Mitchell Ryan) is seen checking his watch during services because his mind is on getting to the game on time.

I think this actually suits the film. In most disaster movies, there are one or two Jerk-Faces with No Redeeming Qualities whose deaths we actively root for, while everyone else is made out to be superficially flawed but essentially charming. Here, the people are all seen as essentially petty, which keeps us at a distance from the characters. The result is a cold, even cynical feel that fits the visual we constantly return to: The impersonal gaze through the sniper's scope.

Though better than contemporary reviews would indicate, Two-Minute Warning is a flawed movie. Pacing is uneven, with an overextended setup; even when the police are on scene, once SWAT is in position, it's a long time before they actually do anything. At this point, the cuts through the various supporting characters feel mainly like obligatory check-ins. Overall, it's a movie that should have been more tightly cut: Had this run, say, 96 minutes instead of 115 minutes, it would likely be much more gripping.

Also, because the NFL didn't want to be associated with a movie about a sniper taking out fans at the Super Bowl, everything about the game is hilariously generic. It's obvious that this is meant to be the Super Bowl (in the novel the movie is based on, it's even identified as such), but the movie carefully avoids naming it as anything other than "the game" or "the championship." The teams are Los Angeles and Baltimore... with no team names given, and with generic uniforms.

Offsetting this is a nicely detailed portrayal of the control room responsible for the game's live broadcast, and the inclusion of actual sportscasters Dick Enberg, Frank Gifford, and Howard Cosell to provide commentary on the fictional game. Merv Griffin even shows up to sing the National Anthem.

Looking through the sniper's scope.

THE NETWORK TELEVISION VERSION:

It's debatable whether this or The Concorde: Airport '79 received the most convoluted network television translation. Like that film, Two-Minute Warning had a gob of new footage shot for television, with an entirely new subplot bolted on. The sniper now has a face, a voice, and a motive. He's been hired to do this... as a distraction during an art theft by criminals Rossano Brazzi, Paul Shenar, and Joanna Pettet.

The main reason for this was that the sniper story was deemed too violent for network television. As much footage was removed as was added, all to downplay the central premise. This was not an inexpensive venture, with several name actors featured in the new subplot... and even boasting new footage with star Charlton Heston (wearing a completely different - orange! - hairpiece).

Director Larry Peerce removed his name from this version, and it goes without saying that the TV cut is much, much worse than the theatrical one. To add insult to injury: For many years, the TV version was the only version shown! Still, it's an amusing curio, and I'm glad that the Shout Factory Blu-ray saw fit to include it as a bonus feature.


OVERALL:

Two-Minute Warning was critically savaged on its release, with reviewers who were already weary of the disaster formula further repelled by the ending violence. I'm not going to say that critics completely missed the boat. The film has its flaws, with uneven pacing undermining the tension, and some unintentional comedy arising from the need to avoid using the term "Super Bowl."

Still, this is a highly watchable movie, well-made and with good performances - and its story feels a lot more relevant today than it did at the time of its release.


Overall Rating: 6/10.



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