Scott LeBrun
The excellent cast is the main reason to watch this passable drama, even though they have been better utilized in other films. As it is, the movie is pretty forgettable, if competently made. Stanley Kramer, legendary helmer of such classics as "Inherit the Wind, "Judgment at Nuremberg", and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", directs from a script by Adam Kennedy, who adapts his own novel. There's violence, plot twists, and an unconvincing romance as part of this not terribly interesting tale.It begins as a narrator forces us to ponder the idea that we are all manipulated at some point in our lives. It then goes on to show us a none-too-bright schmuck who lets himself get jerked around, to his great regret. That man is Roy Tucker (Gene Hackman), who's doing time for murder and who gets sprung from jail by one of those standard-issue shady organizations that we've all seen in movies that are up to no good. Roy finds out that he's been recruited as an assassin, but it remains to be seen if he'll actually grow a brain and stop letting himself be used.Most of the actors try their best, although Candice Bergen, who'd previously played Hackmans' young wife in the grim, violent Western "The Hunting Party", is miscast in a deglamourized role and simply looks uncomfortable. Co-starring are Richard Widmark, Edward Albert, and Eli Wallach as assorted heavies, Mickey Rooney as Tuckers' cellmate, Ken Swofford as a warden, and Jay Novello as an immigration officer. Also helping to keep this thing watchable are effective photography and fine scenery, as well as a nice score by Billy Goldenberg. Otherwise, this isn't exactly stimulating, and in the end it sure isn't surprising.If one is a fan of the talent assembled, they may see this as a mild diversion.Five out of 10.
kai ringler
i thought that this was a very intriguing movie to say the least. Gene Hackman, Eli Wallach, Richard Widmark, Candace Bergen so you have a cavalcade of stars. our story follows a man in prison with no real hope of ever seeing the light of day until he is approached by a mysterious man claiming to work for a government organization, he tells our prisoner he can be let go out of prison,, free to walk, he must only do one thing.... kill the President. for some reason our main character brings along his cellmate who he really despises.. our bad guys quickly eliminate the loose end. our prisoner is given a new identity but really doesn't change his looks that much. he reluctantly agrees to go ahead and carry out the mysterious mans orders. here's where i will leave it so you can watch it and tell me what you think.
Wizard-8
"The Domino Principle" has all but been forgotten today. Seeing it, it becomes clear why it hasn't become a cult movie to any degree. I will admit that it's not a terrible movie; in fact, it has some positive attributes. Gene Hackman is, as usual, solid. And Candice Bergen, who has been criticized many times for her bad performances in this time of her life, actually gives a decent performance. The movie also starts off fairly well, with quite a bit of mystery that slowly unpeels. But the movie ultimately unfolds TOO slowly. It takes forever for Hackman to get out of prison, and takes much longer for Hackman to understand what the mysterious organization wants from him. And we never really learn who the target is, and why he is targeted! I never would have guessed a famous filmmaker like Stanley Kramer was behind this movie, not just for its unusually slow pace but also for the fact that aside from some bad language and some violence, the movie feels exactly like a made-for-TV effort.
elshikh4
Although it seems complicated, but it's very simple.It's a try where Franz Kafka's The Trail meets the dark world of the intelligence's conspiracies. Actually after a decade of assassinations, such as John F. Kennedy, and his brother Robert, then a decade of political scandals, such as Watergate and Vietnam, the American people had lost their faith in their government, and the real question was : Who's really in charge ?! This kind of questions you may find, more specific and less confused, in the next decades, especially in the 1990s, in tortured torturing movies like (J.F.K – 1992), or in comic ones like (Men In Black – 1995), or in sci-fi TV shows like (The X Files – 1993 : 2002). But nothing could deny that the "conspiracy theory" became assured more than ever. Even a movie, a plain thriller one, with the same concept, and the same title, was produced in (1997).I think that the early dealings were mostly vaguer, more general, and less bold. Look at following movies like (Clear and Present Danger - 1994), or (Absolute Power - 1997) to grasp what I mean. Yet in (The Domino Principle - 1977) they tried smartly to present 2 dimensions : the profound one about a human being who found himself in that tyrannical world against his will, where he would live a devastating fate that he didn't deserve. (Hackman) as (Roy Tucker) portrays that type of a man who suffers of unseen mighty despot and, this time, ready to face it with his human deficient power as "I don't know how to surrender". Then, the outward dimension that carried these meanings, which is the attractive plot about an obscure organization that rules and pushes our hero to a hell of political assassination, to kill someone, for some ones, for some things, he didn't quite understand !It was somehow a great formula : the action thriller time, the wild satire about shadow governments, and the philosophical dilemma of one human being who's forced not to be himself, and wants to challenge what surpasses him to make his destiny. But unfortunately the movie couldn't pull it off brilliantly till the end. Because while it was running masterfully harmonizing, suddenly the last 10 minutes ruined everything.There was that foolish sequence when you see matters and wouldn't be able, for a second, to explain or connect any of them. I don't think, by any chance, that this was the film's main goal, or any film's goal. Once your passivity is finished, the whole thing is finished too. As you'd find yourself so busy of asking so many questions. For example : Who killed (Richard Widmark)? and why?, and originally why they didn't kill (Hackman) instead? or before?, why they - the ultimate incomprehensible they - killed the wife while they could gain more by killing (Hackman) himself?, and how to let him alive that long to kill (Edward Albert) and (Mickey Rooney)?, if (Rooney) was alive, so why the big fuss from the start?, and if (Hackman) planned not to kill the target man, what exactly he intended to do, putting in mind that they were having his wife? Moreover, if (Eli Wallach) was that known to the target man; weaving to him like an old friend, or basically flying over his villa peacefully, why he did it in that obvious way which assured his personality as a killer?, ..etc. So the movie was showing us the domino principle, and suffering from it in the same time too !When you ask all of these questions, successively in short time, to have no answer at all, convincing or not, in the same time that the movie's drama goes mad—first of all, you wouldn't pay attention to any further event. Secondly, you wouldn't care to think more. Thirdly, you would hate any kind of drama was presented till this very disappointing moment. Well, that's too subversive to say the least ! Certainly it had a lot of good elements. But as a whole it destroyed its own strong logic as well as wonderful balance where the symbolic line was running cleverly. It worked for the entire movie till the last 10 minutes when what's philosophical took over and executed the dramatic logic among all the murdered people in the end. Just sense the irony between a semi-documentary intro before the opening credits, then an ending that abstracted the whole thing ridiculously between one poor human and one dominating force that owns the world and about to terminate the fate of our good hero easily !! That's a perfect murder to a very promising try of making a balanced metaphysical thriller which could have remade the story of (Lee Harvey Oswald) from a special point of view, and created a stubborn cowboy out of Kafka's inevitably doomed (Mr. K). Though what a rare, interesting, and kind of amusing that "try" was.P.S : I know that a lot of viewers are confused more about the matter of (Bergen)'s wig ! But I suppose that it was a successful move to make her in (Hackman)'s age, more grieved, and less being the lighthearted very-well-known (Candice Bergen), and as much as I hated it; it worked.
