 | |
List Price: $9.99 | | Label: Universal Studios
Salesrank: 41092
Released: December 15, 1998 |
| Our Price: $3.11 |
| Used Price: $1.69 |
|
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
A NIGHTMARE OF FEAR AND PANIC UNFOLDS AS A LONE GUNMAN SETS HIS SIGHTS ON A SELL-OUT CROWD AT A CHAMPIONSHIP FOOTBALL GAME. BONUS FEATURES: THEATRICAL TRAILER, FEATURETTE, TALENT BIOS,PRODUCTION NOTES, AND WEB LINKS.
Description of Two-Minute Warning:
Unfairly dismissed by a number of critics, Two Minute Warning is an absorbing contemplation of the phenomenon of violence. Based on a novel by George LaFountaine, the story concerns an anonymous (and, until the very end, faceless) sniper perched above the scoreboard at a championship football game in Los Angeles. His lack of identity and unstated motivation is key to the film's air of cautionary fable, in which the killer's rage is one end of a continuum that includes many different kinds of violence among numerous characters: emotional withdrawal, police brutality, subtle racism, chips on various shoulders. Produced in 1976, the movie has all the hallmarks of the decade's vogue for disaster flicks: an ensemble cast, a web of story lines, and a lot of people contained in one place where something awful happens. But it is also something more: a successful exercise in plastic storytelling, a clever interweaving of a dozen discrete subplots with a mix of documentary and original action footage. The explosiveness of the football game itself becomes a refrain of ritualized mayhem in director Larry Peerce's patchwork film, but without beating us over the head with its metaphorical obviousness. Two Minute Warning may not be a great or classic work, but it is far more than the sum of its many parts and does leave a lasting impression. --Tom Keogh
Two-Minute Warning Reviews:
Someone's Going to Get Hurt 
2009-11-12 - Here's a movie for people who hate football. A psychopath with a high-powered rifle breaks into a huge L.A. stadium just before a championship game, and all hell breaks loose. Well, there's more to it than that. The real violence gets going toward the end of the game (hence the title). The film touches on a few of the personal stories of people watching the game.
Playoff shootout...1970s style 
2009-10-12 - Underrated 70s disaster movie with another all-star cast. The story is simple: there's a football playoff game in the 90,000+ capacity LA Coliseum and a sniper is on the loose. When the blimp-cam spots him, it's up to the stadium security chief (Charlton Heston) and the SWAT-team leader (John Cassavettes) to stop him before he starts shooting. Who is the sniper? What does he want? Who is the target?
The rest of the characters, predictably, exist to get blown away (or not) by the madman shooter, who remains mysterious throughout the film. (The sniper is limited to first-person shots and long shots as he waits in his nest.) The tension builds...and you know how this is gonna end.
What to say? It was the 1970s, the ratings code was still relatively new, and movies were pushing it. Portrayals of mass murder were becoming more common, and here we have a rather cynical film...quite cynical even by today's standards. We know where it's going. You know the random characters at the stadium---the priest, the gambler, the pickpocket, the bickering couple, the cop---exist as mere sketches before they are relegated to flesh and blood spattering. Even when a fan (a young Beau Bridges) notices the sniper up in his perch, his attempt to warn someone results in an icy confrontation with suspicious and uncaring cops. Even those charged with stopping the killing cannot agree on how to do so, as Heston and Cassavettes bump heads over methods. These scenes, depicting disparity between authority figures either too soft, too gung-ho, or too uncaring, give the film a chilling edge that other entries in the genre either missed or purposely avoided.
We are not treated to a deep study of the sniper, or his motives, which may be more 'old fashioned' in this regard. No long speeches about the political motives, for instance. No boogieman of the day (pick your ethnic terrorist or madman profile). Just sit back and watch the chaos unfold.
Could have been better, though the ending, perhaps still prescient even then, shows what we still do after this kind of thing (back then, mass murder was still relatively 'new'): profile the killer, talk to his high school teacher, and try and catalog the 'warning' signs. Perhaps the appearance of a film like Two Minute Warning, and its ilk, was itself a warning sign.
Being unfamiliar with the source novel of the same name by George La Fountaine, I can't comment on the transition or differences. The movie is recommended for football, disaster movie, and insanity fans, the cast (particularly the two leads) make it quite watchable, and the ensuing mayhem's built-in appeal still keep this baby in print. It's rather nihilistic, even for a disaster movie. The DVD is rather bare bones but looks good enough...like so many films, you can pick it up on the cheap and have money left for popcorn.
A tense, slow burn
2009-02-02 - This film is a slow burner, with almost no action for nearly the entire running time, and then everything goes crazy at the eponymous two minute warning. It has a huge, ensamble cast, led by Heston and Cassavetes as the lead police. Almost every character gets a moment to shine, and when the bullets finally start flying there is a lot of tension as these characters run for cover.
For such a large cast and huge spectacle the film seems really small for a large portion of its running time. Only in the final, action packed minutes does the movie really use its cast and scope to full potential.
This movie is a wonderfully refreshing change from the frenetic action of contemporary film, really drawing out suspense as long as possible. The enigmatic, never clearly seen sniper adds to the tension, and his motives seem to be as an agent of chaos as much as anything else. I highly recommend this for anyone who loves slow-burn thrillers and the style of 1970s cinema.
Not as good as Black Sunday...
2007-04-20 - Although "Two-Minute Warning" is still an entertaining movie about a "situation" developing, when a madman prepares to shoot people in a stadium, the movie has some holes in it.
I won't spend too many words about its transfer on DVD, which is standard, but could have been taken better care of.
The holes I mentioned before, are mainly referred to the characters involved in this movie.
Except for some very general hints on who they all are, there is practically no "in-depth" character study whatsoever.
All the characters could have been taken form the street and assembled together at random.
We know nothing about them, except for the rather obvious.
The movie at one point, even goes so far, as to almost become a training documentary, or even a promotional spot for the S.W.A.T.
We never get to truly understand who the heck the "madman" is or wants, or for this matter, what triggered him to such an action.
There is no way to either truly sympathize for his own personal ordeal that pushes him to such folly, nor to really hate him for it.
All we get of him, are very general shots form afar, or seen "through his eyes", but we can't even "hear" his thoughts that might go through his mind at that moment.
While in "Dirty Harry", Andrew Robinson, as the Scorpio Killer, made us love to hate him, for all the obvious reasons, and also because we get to "know" him, in this picture, there seems to be no need to get to know the guy and therefore, we cannot decide what to think about it all.
As with the characters played by Charlton Heston and John Cassavetes, two otherwise very talented actors, we absolutely have no true idea from what kind of a background they stem from, and therefore they are just standing there, wooden, watching and studying.
Also, even though we know that the shooter will at one point or another, take aim and shoot some people, the entire process that leads to the final moment in which it happens, is so dragged by the feet, that when it happens, no one is truly surprised nor really concerned with it anymore.
The poor Jack Klugman (the famous Oscar Madison of TVs "The Odd Couple" and "Quincy"), in one of his last roles, is totally wasted here, delivering very shallow lines and almost reprising a role, similar to the one he played in "The Odd Couple", only a bit more dramatic.
Even Martin Balsam ("The Anderson Tapes", "The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three" and "Murder on the Orient Express"), Brock Peters, Gena Rowlands (watch her in "Gloria"), David Janssen, Walter Pidgeon and Beau Bridges don't manage to save the day in this picture.
This is not a movie I can truly recommend, except maybe, just to compare it in scope to "Black Sunday", which is by far more entertaining and original in its development.
These two pictures watched back-to-back, would make for an interesting case study on how to produce, and not to produce a good movie.
70's DISASTER MOVIE JUST FOR FUN !!!
2007-04-19 - Dont watch this movie looking for any deep meanings about why people act the way they do. This is an action adventure film that they used to call disaster movies in the 70's. Its fun from beginning to end ! Its a movie where you pop a bucket of popcorn , eat a candy bar ,drink a soda and loose yourself for a couple of hours! Enjoy! I did !
