Amateur movie with Big budget

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This is Harry Dean at his finest. Hoffman is brilliant and so are Busey and the most captivating Ms Russell. The camera bees lovin some Theresa. She is so physically attractive it's almost distracting. This is one of those "Wonder Boys", "Nobody's Fool", kind of movies you never heard of that are so great. I think it's everyone's involved best work. The Blue Falcon is given because if I were Harry Dean's character, my dying act would have been to put as many rounds into Hoffman's character as I could before I expired.

Prison movies always score big with many of the viewers because it reveals what happens when things fail and what becomes of the men involved. Here we get to find out. Its a raw, hard-hitting reality movie of what it is like to be an ex-convict and how things line up against you quite fast if you don't get a handle on yourself. Hoffman delivers a fine performance along with an outstanding support cast. The way it ends is interesting and unconventional leaving the viewer to wonder. Good heist scenes and reminds us all that the best time in the world, free of stress, virtues and honesty that is easy to live and one can do is....

Once ignored by seemingly Everyone, Critics and Audiences, this Sleeper is continually gaining the respect and admiration it deserves. A Neo-Noir from the Pen of the perennially penned-up Eddie Bunker who has since become rehabilitated from Drug and Crime and slowly made a Name as a teller of unfettered Truth from a Convict's point of View.Dustin Hoffman in an Uncanny Acting Turn is wholly believable as the short- tempered Small Time Criminal who gives a half-hearted attempt to do "Straight Time" despite His tendencies to be completely Anti-Establishment and lashes out any chance He gets to beat down anyone who gets in the way of His anger.A fully Great Cast of Character Actors like Harry Dean Stanton, E. Emmett Walsh, and Gary Busey, with Theresa Russell in an Early and understated Performance as Hoffman's wannabe Girlfriend and the Direction from No-Frills Ulu Grosbard make this a Must See.It's a Come Together of Gritty 1970's Realism, a Tell it Like it Is Script, and fine Acting. By the Late Seventies that 70's bleak look at Life through a Vision of Verisimilitude rather than Style might have played out and that accounts for its Lackluster reception at the Time.But Time has been kind to this one. It is now considered one of the Better Films of the Seventies despite the lack of Crime Thriller Charisma so often seen in the Movies that is an easy sell and a built in Audience wanting Fast-Paced and Gussied Up displays of Crime and Criminals. This one plays it perfectly "Straight".

Very realistic crime movie, based on No Beast So Fierce, the first book by Eddie Bunker, whom you probably know as Mr Blue in Reservoir Dogs. Bunker was a career criminal with an impressive track record: he was San Quentin's youngest inmate ever and made it all the way to the FBI's most wanted list in the early seventies. During his last stay in prison he wrote No Beast So Fierce, about an ex-convict named Max Dembo, who has a hard time adjusting on the outside. According to Bunker, No Beast So Fierce is supposed to show that most ex-cons who go back to a life of crime don't choose to do so. They're forced by the system and the circumstances. Well, I haven't read the book, but in Straight Time the reason for Max Dembo's inevitable return to crime lies mostly in his character, not in the system. Sure, his parole officer (a superb M. Emmett Walsh) is a complete asshole. But who hasn't had an asshole for a boss? We take the abuse and move on. But not Max Dembo. He just can't. Too proud, too stubborn, too ill adjusted to civilian life. When Dembo attacks his parole officer and there is no way back for him, we see not only panic in his eyes but also relief. His attitude changes as well: while he was clearly uncomfortable trying to adjust to life outside, he is quite resolute and efficient as soon as he is back doing the things he does best, which is robbing banks. It's a great role for Hoffman who had Bunker and another ex-convict called John Carlen advise him throughout the production. That probably added to the realism of this great crime film. In most movies about bank robbers, the criminals are mostly outsiders by choice, with their own set of principles. Straight Time is no different. But unlike The Getaway or Charley Varrick, this one shows us the very tragic consequences of that life.