DUSTIN HOFFMAN & ROY SCHEIDER RUN THROUGH 'MARATHON MAN'

Title: MARATHON MAN Year: 1976 Rating: ***1/2

The epitome of a Thriller, John Schlesinger's MARATHON MAN can be a letdown with the teaming of two legends — one an old stage actor, the other a young method actor... And we'll get the "Why don't you try acting" elephant out of the room — which was Olivier's quip to Hoffman when he needed to actually run to seem winded...

Then again, Dustin is the title character spending most of the picture exhausted from either jogging around New York's Central Park or being chased throughout the last half when this Thriller morphs into an Action flick: Which isn't the best part of MARATHON MAN as Roy Scheider plays Dustin's older brother in the most suspenseful scenes: as some kind of secret agent, he's eventually connected with his passive New York collegiate sibling after being introduced in Paris, France, where director Schlesinger (reunited with MIDNIGHT COWBOY star Hoffman) evokes a fair amount of Hitchcockesque tension (plus a GODFATHER 2 style strangling) as things either explode or seem just about to...

Laurence Olivier arrives in MARATHON MAN

The best moment has a shrewd Schieder calling out his brother's far-too-perfect and convenient German girlfriend Marthe Keller at a fancy New York restaurant, which seems part of another espionage story that's just getting started...

So when the film suddenly shifts into that hectic, Noir-inspired city-after-hours foot-chase involving the iconic, literally torturous sequence as Olivier — a former Nazi concentration camp dentist — pulls Hoffman's teeth for information along the way, it's simply winding-down to a somewhat generic face-off/conclusion. In a nutshell, MARATHON MAN is more of a prolonged quick sprint... that should leave you equally exercised. 

Next Years' SHORT EYES youngsters Tito Goya and Church Ortiz in Marathon Man

Dustin Hoffman studies up in MARATHON MAN

Dustin Hoffman studies up in MARATHON MAN

Laurence Olivier arrives in America for the Nazi antagonist role in Marathon Man

Henchman Mark Lawrence, scene-stealer Roy Scheider and Laurence Olivier in MARATHON MAN

Awesome closeup of an exploding doll in MARATHON MAN

Cover of the Videodisc cover of MARATHON MAN

Olivier's henchman played by Richard Bright and Marc Lawrence

Roy Scheider in the Paris, France sequences of MARATHON MAN

A Thriller is the simple and fitting tagline for MARATHON MAN