Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his brother, a member of the secretive Division.
Marathon Man is a tightly wound paranoid thriller elevated chiefly by its performances — Dustin Hoffman's neurotic everyman and Laurence Olivier's chilling Nazi war criminal Szell are both exceptional, with Olivier's 'Is it safe?' dental torture scene becoming one of cinema's most iconic moments of sustained dread. The plot is intricate but somewhat convoluted, relying heavily on Cold War-era espionage mechanics that can feel murky on first viewing. Cinematography is competent and atmospherically gritty in the New York location work but not visually distinctive. The film's conception — a Kafkaesque innocent pulled into a shadowy conspiracy — was a well-worn thriller trope even in 1976, though executed with enough style to feel above-average. The ending is the weakest element: the resolution feels rushed and tonally uneven, undercutting the sustained tension built across the film.