Although there are many things that could be discussed, there are two things I want to focus on from this movie: the parole officer and the girlfriend.
The parole officer Earl Frank (M. Emmet Walsh) was the worse kind of PO. His underhanded and heavy handed tactics all but ensured that Max Dembo (Dustin Hoffman) would go back to prison. The PO should be aiding and assisting a parolee as much as possible to merge back into regular society. By being overly strict to the point of locking Max up again while his urine test went through, he hurt him as bad as one could imagine. His self-respect was snatched away, he probably lost his job due to being a no-show, and he could see the writing on the wall that he was going to violate his parole one way or another with the PO he had.
It was sweet justice when Max handcuffed Earl to the fence on the side of the freeway with his pants down. The direction Earl went afterwards was extremely self-destructive, but the impetus was the parole officer.
The girl Max met is a different story. Jenny Mercer (Theresa Russell) was a young simple girl just working a normal job. One could say that her most critical mistake was saying yes to a date with a man she knew was a convicted felon. She said yes to a date not knowing him as a person and not knowing what he was arrested for. Were his eyes that kind, was she that bored, or that desperate?
What was more egregious than her accepting the date was her getting further involved with him once it was clear he was not going to abandon his life of crime. There was no happy ending to that entire scenario. She open her arms and her bed to him as though they were long time lovers finally reunited. What was her story that made her so risky or such a bad judge of character?
Max Dembo was bad news. And as much as I sided with him when his PO was on his case, I pitied him thereafter. He leapt from one bad decision to another and did so very recklessly. Max was a mercurial character that grew unlikeable as the movie went on. He seemed destined to destroy himself and take others down with him. That's a mushroom cloud you don't want to be around.
The parole officer Earl Frank (M. Emmet Walsh) was the worse kind of PO. His underhanded and heavy handed tactics all but ensured that Max Dembo (Dustin Hoffman) would go back to prison. The PO should be aiding and assisting a parolee as much as possible to merge back into regular society. By being overly strict to the point of locking Max up again while his urine test went through, he hurt him as bad as one could imagine. His self-respect was snatched away, he probably lost his job due to being a no-show, and he could see the writing on the wall that he was going to violate his parole one way or another with the PO he had.
It was sweet justice when Max handcuffed Earl to the fence on the side of the freeway with his pants down. The direction Earl went afterwards was extremely self-destructive, but the impetus was the parole officer.
The girl Max met is a different story. Jenny Mercer (Theresa Russell) was a young simple girl just working a normal job. One could say that her most critical mistake was saying yes to a date with a man she knew was a convicted felon. She said yes to a date not knowing him as a person and not knowing what he was arrested for. Were his eyes that kind, was she that bored, or that desperate?
What was more egregious than her accepting the date was her getting further involved with him once it was clear he was not going to abandon his life of crime. There was no happy ending to that entire scenario. She open her arms and her bed to him as though they were long time lovers finally reunited. What was her story that made her so risky or such a bad judge of character?
Max Dembo was bad news. And as much as I sided with him when his PO was on his case, I pitied him thereafter. He leapt from one bad decision to another and did so very recklessly. Max was a mercurial character that grew unlikeable as the movie went on. He seemed destined to destroy himself and take others down with him. That's a mushroom cloud you don't want to be around.