A great film. Dustin Hoffman is at his peak here, and shows why he's one of the five greatest actors of his generation as he inhabits the character of Max Dembo, a career criminal who's just been released on parole. The movie is brilliant in it's pacing, as we see the layers of Dembo slowly revealed. We want to believe he's a good guy who just made a mistake ("I just want the same things everyone else wants..."), but as the film goes on we see one transgression after another that ultimately reveal to us that he may not be the man we thought he was in the beginning. An excellent portrayal by Hoffman is at the center of the movie, but there is also fine work on display from M. Emmett Walsh (maybe the greatest character actor of all time) as his parole officer, and Theresa Russell (looking like she's about 18) as his naive love interest. Hoffman is brilliant in his interpretation of a prison lifer. Check out the scene where his P.O. throws him back in jail on a petty bust just so he can show Dembo who's in charge. Walsh nails his part as the small man who compensates for his shortcomings by abusing what little authority he has (in other words, a dead on portrayal of almost all law officers), but Hoffman is absolutely perfect as he goes into his thousand yard stare mode while going through the jail house routine of frisking and delousing. The look on his face says "You can't hurt me because I'm numb". Very few flaws in this film. Hell, even the Randy Newmanesque music that plays throughout is perfectly suited. I was enthralled from the opening scene to the last, which is, fittingly, a series of mugshots of Hoffman's Dembo over the years. Highly recommend.
Review of Straight Time
