Word: hackmans
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...Gypsy Moths is Frankenheimer's latest and most clinical conjugation of courage, a brooding tale of three stunt parachutists bound by the brotherhood of danger. Rettig (Burt Lancaster) is a moody enigma who gets his kicks by pulling his rip cord at the last possible moment. Browdy (Gene Hackman) looks like something out of Sinclair Lewis, a perspiring, frenetic showman who goes to confession before every jump. Malcolm (Scott Wilson) is a kid trying to challenge the deadening effects of a loveless, lonely childhood...
...more leaden than loaded. Although Frankenheimer's direction is always precise and often-as in the skydiving sequences-masterly, much of the dialogue lacks the painful intensity that was obviously intended. The interrelationships of the characters make sense but have little emotional resonance, a handicap that only Gene Hackman manages to surmount. His brassy characterization of a free-living sky diver adds a poignant dimension of reality to a film that, like sky diving itself, is an exciting but slightly dubious exercise...
...storm. Finally, the boys in isolation decide to do something about it. They bust out, take over the cell block and hold the guards as hostages. The object of the whole thing is to stall for time so that a few of the riot ringleaders (Jim Brown, Gene Hackman, Ben Carruthers) can tunnel under the wall and make a break for freedom...
Despite all this realism, Riot is about as convincing as 20,000 Years in Sing Sing. Jim Brown is becoming a strong, silent screen presence, but that is not acting. Gene Hackman, a fine character actor, deserves better parts than the one he is given here, and audiences deserve better than the careless ease he brings to it. Although the year is still young, Ben Carruthers contributes what will surely stand as one of its worst performances. As a homicidal schizo, he twitches, shakes and gyrates like a dwarf holding a trip hammer...
...landlord, in turn, is shot down by a crooked cop (Gene Hackman), who makes off with the money but later joins forces with Brown to shoot it out with the accomplices. Naturally, the accomplices all die, and the cop becomes a hero. As for good old Jimmy Brown, he is about to escape with his share, when he is called-symbolically-by the voice of the dead Diahann, summoning him-symbolically-to hell. And there, as they say in professional football, The Split ends...