Tormented by His Past, a Man Falls into a Deadly Encounter: A Retro Review for "Marathon Man"

Dustin Hoffman in "Marathon Man"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

*With movie theaters closed for the time being, I’m going to take this time to review classics that I have yet to see.  I’m going to try to do these “Retro Reviews” as often as I can until the theaters reopen.  Hope you enjoy them!

Director John Schlesinger made one of the boldest cinematic accomplishments of the ‘60s with his 1969 groundbreaking drama, “Midnight Cowboy,” which tackled several taboo subjects that made the movie experience considerable controversy upon its release.  In the film, he used these topics to present New York City in a sort of light that audiences hadn’t seen before, using a familiar setting for a story that was anything but.

Schlesinger returned to NYC seven years later to explore more of the mysterious corners of NYC with his thriller, “Marathon Man.”  While you have to wait a while for the story to pick up, the movie is nevertheless bolstered by its lead performances and tension.

Thomas Levy (Dustin Hoffman) is a history Ph.D student and runner who’s still haunted by his father’s suicide from when he was a child.  He soon becomes involved in the dealings of a Nazi war criminal named Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier), who sets out to retrieve stolen diamonds that were owned by his deceased brother.

Hoffman, who collaborated with Schlesinger for “Midnight Cowboy,” provides a performance that displays his character always being chased by his troubled past and how much it still weighs on him all of these years later.  He perfectly exhibits the panic-stricken paranoia that plagues Thomas as the movie goes on, and the wide-eyed, out-of-breath individual that we see when the film’s tension ramps up makes experience the feeling of being thrown into a conspiracy that unravels your life.  The exhaustion of being pursued that Hoffman shows is enough to make you feel that same exhaustion as the life-threatening scenario consumes him more and more, and you’ll find yourself breathing heavily along with Thomas as the events of the film reach their startling conclusion.

Olivier’s menacing portrayal of a former Nazi gives you an abundance of chills whenever he appears.  What makes his performance so unsettling is how Olivier gives Christian a constant sense of calm as he does the horrible acts that he sets out to commit, all while showing someone who intends on being unstoppable and ruthless in the pursuit of the diamonds.  The sense of threat that he brings to the role will make you quiver, particularly in a scene with an interrogation in a dentist chair that’s guaranteed to make you cringe several times, making him a memorable villain who will surely make you recoil in fear.

The screenplay by William Goldman, which is based on his 1974 novel of the same name, takes some time to pick up the pace, as it has quite a bit to set up.  However, once we approach the second half and the paths of Thomas and Christian begin to converge, we have a web of intrigue that propels the onslaught of danger in which Thomas finds himself.  Within this entanglement, we get deeper into themes of memory, persecution, and vengeance, and these themes, as well as how they have a thematic connection to Thomas, are what help elevate the movie as a whole.

Despite the movie feeling a bit slow during the first half, Schlesinger is still able to invest us in the characters.  Similar to how he depicted the emotional relationship between Hoffman and Jon Voight in “Midnight Cowboy,” Schlesinger does the same with Thomas and his brother, Henry (Roy Scheider), adding a poignant angle to the story as we find out more about them.
Other than this, Schlesinger shows an accomplished hand when dealing with a thriller, of which this is his first.  While the opening scene and a car-and-foot chase later on are memorable in their own right, Schlesinger displays an ability to thrill us even with more small-scale scenes, such as an anxiety-inducing sequence where two of Christian’s henchmen sneak into Thomas’ apartment while he’s in the bathroom and must hide.  With the use of shadows, whispers, and a confined setting, Schlesinger delivers a pulse-pounding turning point in the film that leads to a high volume of apprehension.

Once “Marathon Man” finds its stride, you will be carried along on its high-speed intensity as it advances from a jog to a full-on sprint.

Grade: A-