Rating: 
Summary: THEY DO NOT MAKE MOVIES THIS GOOD ANY MORE
Review: The conspiracy movies included two fictional stories, "Marathon Man" and "The Parallax View", as well as the Watergate movie, "All the President's Men" (which Robert Redford produced after giving long consideration to a movie about how Kennedy stole the 1960 election...not!).
"Marathon Man" was directed by John Schlesinger, written by the great William Goldman (based on his novel), and produced by Bob Evans. Goldman, along with Towne, is considered one of the best screenwriters of all time. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1968) is an original screenplay that gets as much study as "Chinatown", and his book "Adventures in the Screen Trade" is a must-read for industry insiders. "Marathon Man" stars Dustin Hoffman as a Columbia doctoral student, obsessed with his thesis about his father, who committed suicide when he was "victimized" by McCarthyism. His brother is Roy Scheider, a super-secret agent for an organization that handles, apparently, what the FBI cannot and the CIA will not. His pal is William DeVane, and he is in league with the devil, a former Nazi dentist named Christian Zsell (played to perfection by Laurence Olivier), based on Joseph Mengele. Zsell is also known as the "White Angel". The plot revolves around millions of dollars worth of diamonds, smuggled to the U.S. by Zsell with DeVane's (and Sheider's) help. Hoffman accidentally gets involved and foils the plot. It is brilliant stuff in every way, shape and form, but coming on the heels of the Church hearings, the film plays on the public's belief that the CIA is corrupt, bent more on money and power than protecting the interests of freedom. The anti-hero is Hoffman. The backstory of his persecuted Jewish father strengthens the myth that fine liberals of conscience were the victims of the McCarthy witch-hunt. Like all films depicting McCarthyism, the victim is fictional and there are no scenes based on real events. This is because actual scenes of actual "victims," if they hold to the truth, will show actual Communists being caught in lies by public officials using perfectly normally and legal techniques of American justice.(...)
Rating:
Summary: One of my top 200 cult movies !
Review: The opening sequence in which we watch two old man discussing and offending one each other in the middle of New York City is terrific .
You will find a lot of excitement in this passionate thriller about double agents and elderly Nazis . The script is heavy puzzled and the violence spills very often along the film but at the end you gratify this entry .
Olivier plays a cruel dentist who will torture Dustin Hoffman making famous the expression : Isn't it safe? such as an operatic obstinate .
And the rest runs for you my dear reader . Based on William Goldman 's novel.
Rating:
Summary: excellent 70s film
Review: the torture scene ("is it safe?") is of course very memorable, but an equally gripping scene is when Olivier, the Nazi, goes to the Jewish section of town to assess the value of his diamonds and starts getting recognized by Holocaust survivors. Especially good are the old woman across the street, frantically yelling "Szell! Szell! Stop him!" and the man who confronts Szell and pays a terrible price for doing so. Hoffman is of course excellent, as well as Olivier, Scheider and Devane...
Rating:
Summary: Is it safe?
Review: This is a personal favorite. The story is really well done and shot. Hoffman is great as Babe. Roy Schieder, William Devane and Laurence Olivier are all complex and well developed characters. This movie is INTENSE! You will never think about your dentist the same way again. "Is it safe?"
Rating:
Summary: A THRILLER THAT ACTUALLY THRILLS
Review: This is an old favorite. I watched it again the other night. It's
been over twenty years since I saw it last, and it's still as
good today as it was back then. The first half of the movie
plays heavily on plot and character development,which serves well
during the later action scenes. This development is not boring,
it is intermingled with sequences of international intrigue,
murder, and betrayal. Hoffman plays a history student who also
happens to be a wanna-be marathon runner obsessed with the death
of his father. Without giving too much away, Laurence Olivier
gives an excellent and chilling performance as a Nazi with a
knack for dental instruments. This is one of those "I don't
know who I can trust" movies. Unlike most movies with this
premise, it creates a believable scenario,instead of relying on
the same old tired "I can't remember" trick that so many lesser
movies cheat their audience with. Once this movie kicks into
overdrive, it moves along at a fever pitch with twists and turns
around every corner. The suspense will have you on the edge of
your seat.
Thanks and enjoy,
Tom
Rating:
Summary: IS IT SAFE???
Review: This is one of the finest suspense movies of the 70's. Hoffman's potrayal of a coward forced to come to terms with the evil force of Olivier is top notch. After the torture scene you'll never feel "safe" going to the dentist again.
Rating:
Summary: Classic.
Review: This movie is a classic. Should not be missed. Hoffman is, as always, brilliant.
Rating: 
Summary: Paranoia everywhere
Review: Thomas "Babe" Levy has to be the least appealing hero ever to appear in a Hollywood thriller. Dustin Hoffman's loner graduate student appears put out and threatened by everyone around him. He appears to lack a sense of humor, and terrorizes fellow joggers around the Central Park Reservoir. His name is the most cheerful thing about him. Not a single character in the film ever tells him the truth. And that's just in the first hour, long before the Nazis kidnap him. In a 1990s kind of film, Levy's world would would brighten considerably... the obligatory action-movie girlfriend would open up his eyes to the world around him, or the redeeming of his late brother's and father's legacies would provide him some kind of closure. Not here. "Marathon Man" is downbeat, darkly funny, and downbeat. In a good way. All the major characters (except Hoffman's) are schemers, and nothing goes according to plan. At the heart of the story are thousands of diamonds, stolen from Jewish victims in the concentration camps. Unexpected bathos occurs late in the film when Olivier's Nazi war criminal (who stole the diamonds during the war) enters Manhattan's Diamond District to retrieve his loot from a bank and have it appraised--and is promptly recognized by at least two Holocaust survivors. Chaos ensues. The film ends with the diamonds submerged in the pump house of the Central Park Reservoir, as an oblivious Hoffman -- the Marathon Man of the title -- runs away to join the Reservoir joggers. It's easy to imagine "Marathon Man" being remade today, with the details of the Swiss banking activities still coming to light. One thing's for sure... no film today would have quite the same blacker-than-black comedy world view of "Marathon Man"'s 1970s.
Rating:
Summary: The Race is Not Always to the Swift
Review: Tom (Dustin Hoffman) studies history, partly because theories of history are so clear cut and comforting, unlike life, and partly because years earlier, his father committed suicide after having been branded a communist. As he matures, he learns that books and a love of history cannot prepare him for the real world. In MARATHON MAN, Tom learns that the real world is far more dangerous than the relatively minor razzing that a local street gang subjects him to. He learns that the people who are the closest to him are not what they appear to be. His brother Doc (Roy Scheider) is a businessman with a secret life as a CIA agent. His girlfiend Elsa (Marthe Keller) is mixed up with an escaped Nazi dentist, ex-Auschwitz Commandant Szell (Sir Lawrence Olivier). The movie starts off slowly with Tom first believing in then later finding out the truth about Doc and Elsa. He learns that all three have been looking for a hidden cache of diamonds stolen from Jews during the Holocaust.
MARATHON MAN stands out as quite different from other chase and thriller films that seek to capitalize on the genocide of the war. Here, Dustin Hoffman plays Tom as decidedly unheroic. He can run fast and far, and shows creative talent in tight situations, but he is no fist fighter. He is constantly bullied and beaten by a variety of thuggish types. He endures a brutally realistic session as a prisoner in a dentist's chair when Szell uses his dental skills to extract facts rather than molars. Yet,despite Tom's lack of martial skills, he proves every bit the equal of spy types who kill for a living. As convincing a job as Hoffman does as Tom, the real star is Olivier as the demented dentist Szell. Olivier is absolutely convincing as the former camp commandant who will stop at nothing to retrieve the stolen diamonds. While seeking to ascertain the value of his diamonds, Szell goes to the diamond district of New York, a business run by the very people he killed in massive numbers some thirty years earlier. An old woman and a diamond dealer recognize him and the tension generated by his potential exposure forces the viewer to see events from the unlikely perspective of the hunter who is now the hunted. Olivier was a deserved nominee for best supporting actor as Szell. The movie points to a climactic confrontation between Tom and Szell, and when it arrives, the sparkly diamonds serve only to throw light on the ongoing but long postponed battle between a man who thought the passing of time would excuse and justify his acts and a man who is determined that all bills, even overdue ones, must be paid in full.
Rating:
Summary: Dustin Hoffman at his best!
Review: Wow! This Thriller has everything...Action, Romance, Evil but believable villians, and best of all INCREDIBLE acting...Two Oscar winners star (Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier) and an Oscar nominee co-stars (Roy Schneider)EXCELLENT MOVIE!!
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