This is a film that when you say James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Shirley Knight, with Francis Ford Coppola writing and directing, you'd expect an 8 or 9 rating. When you watch the film, it does not quite live up to the sum of these parts. There are a few reasons.
Shirley Knight is brilliant, and her character is addressing the issue of Roe V Wade (1973) here 4 years before the court decision. I credit Coppola for bringing that into the plot. What gets hard to understand is that she runs away because she is pregnant from her husband, not sure if she is going to be a good mother, and not sure of anything it seems. The script has her calling her husband, yet it does not really explain if she loves her husband, though I suspect not.
James Caan is very good as the brain damaged football player whose nickname is killer and who has been given $1,000 to leave the college he got injured in a game at. It is not a big dialogue role which had to be tough for the talkative Caan but he brings it off pretty well. Duvall is the lonely cop whose wife died in a fire and comes into the picture pulling Knight over for speeding and decides he wants to use Knight to replace the departed one.
Knight's conflict in my opinion is not explained well enough and that is the weakness in this one. If that were explained better, the film would hook the viewer more. Because of her considerable talent Shirley does hook the viewer in late in the film, but if the hook had come earlier, this would be a batter film.
While this film does feature a dream Wedding Sequence with Knight's husband. The sequence uses the same music as is used at weddings in the Godfather films. There is some foreshadowing for Coppola.
This is a good film, that is just a little short of being a great film. While the parts should have made it, the results do not.
Shirley Knight is brilliant, and her character is addressing the issue of Roe V Wade (1973) here 4 years before the court decision. I credit Coppola for bringing that into the plot. What gets hard to understand is that she runs away because she is pregnant from her husband, not sure if she is going to be a good mother, and not sure of anything it seems. The script has her calling her husband, yet it does not really explain if she loves her husband, though I suspect not.
James Caan is very good as the brain damaged football player whose nickname is killer and who has been given $1,000 to leave the college he got injured in a game at. It is not a big dialogue role which had to be tough for the talkative Caan but he brings it off pretty well. Duvall is the lonely cop whose wife died in a fire and comes into the picture pulling Knight over for speeding and decides he wants to use Knight to replace the departed one.
Knight's conflict in my opinion is not explained well enough and that is the weakness in this one. If that were explained better, the film would hook the viewer more. Because of her considerable talent Shirley does hook the viewer in late in the film, but if the hook had come earlier, this would be a batter film.
While this film does feature a dream Wedding Sequence with Knight's husband. The sequence uses the same music as is used at weddings in the Godfather films. There is some foreshadowing for Coppola.
This is a good film, that is just a little short of being a great film. While the parts should have made it, the results do not.