Word: hackmans
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Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) has a pathological passion for his own privacy. That has its vocational advantages, of course-"the best bugger on the West Coast" ought to be as anonymous as possible. Beyond this, though, Caul's insulation is a way of sealing himself off from his own guilt. There is blood already on his expert hands. An earlier surveillance operation resulted in the murder of an accountant, his wife and kids. Harry begins to see their specters in his new assignment: to record an apparently innocuous conversation between a young woman (Cindy Williams) and a man (Frederic...
...film is meticulously cast. Special note should be taken of John Cazale, who is so subtle and adept as Caul's foggy assistant that he seems once again (he was the brother Fredo in The Godfather) to be among the best young character actors. For Hackman, Caul presents a substantial challenge. It is a largely interiorized role in contrast to the action parts on which he has recently built his career. He responds with the most sustained screen performance he has done. "Jay Cocks
Still, The Seven-Ups is by far the best of the current blotter of cop movies. It deals more directly than any, including Serpico (TIME, Dec. 31), with the criminal pathology of some police men. Roy Scheider, the leader of the Seven-Ups (and Gene Hackman's part ner in The French Connection), has just the right grave, anonymous face for the part, the right quality of eruptive violence. There are no heroes here. The movie has been made with the dogged intensity that cops can bring to their work, which explains why you have a feeling of having...
Lion (Al Pacino) is an innocent, and Max (Gene Hackman) a combative cynic of the open road. Like George and Lenny in Of Mice and Men−rather too much like them, in fact−Lion and Max fall in with each other while hitchhiking on a lonely country road. Max has spent six years in stir at San Quentin; Lion has been at sea in the merchant marine for five, fleeing the strangulating responsibilities of family and a 9-to-5 job. Lion is on his way to Detroit to see his wife and the child she was about...
...Hackman is fine as the snarling Max. Scruffy and bespectacled, he has a good time hunkering down into his characterization. But he gets in so far that no other actor can reach him. Pacino's characterization of Lion therefore remains unresolved. Hackman and Pacino never really react off one another because Hackman remains too selfabsorbed. The tension between the two actors is tangible and arresting, at least initially, but it eventually hobbles what small humanity the movie might have...