Gene Hackman and Al Pacino meat while hitchhiking and pretty rapidly agree to go into business together. Hackman has been in prison and has been squirreling away his money with dreams of opening a car wash in Pittsburgh. Pacino has been in the merchant marines, running away from a child he fathered and has never seen in Detroit. The two travel together towards Pittsburgh, stopping in Colorado to visit Hackman's sister and Detroit to see Pacino's kid.
I saw this film many years ago and remembered liking it. Seeing it again, it's a largely unheralded masterpiece. It's extremely low on plot, but takes two vividly drawn characters and sends them across America stopping in all the dingiest locations one could find. It's somewhat reminiscent of "The Last Detail", another film from the same year that I love.
It's hard these days to imaginer a time when two extraordinary actors at the top of their commercial peak ... Hackman coming off "The French Connection" and "The Poseidon Adventure" and Pacino coming off "The Godfather" ... would take the time to make such a low key film that really just lets them act.
I saw this film many years ago and remembered liking it. Seeing it again, it's a largely unheralded masterpiece. It's extremely low on plot, but takes two vividly drawn characters and sends them across America stopping in all the dingiest locations one could find. It's somewhat reminiscent of "The Last Detail", another film from the same year that I love.
It's hard these days to imaginer a time when two extraordinary actors at the top of their commercial peak ... Hackman coming off "The French Connection" and "The Poseidon Adventure" and Pacino coming off "The Godfather" ... would take the time to make such a low key film that really just lets them act.