Two-Minute Warning

"the whole place is a kill-zone"
Filmed in and around the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, this often absurd but always entertaining thriller will be enjoyed by those like me who have an affection for '70s action/disaster movies like "Airport", and the many that followed it.

This like the other films follows the usual formula in the first half by giving us a glimpse into the lives of the participants, which the net of fate reels in for the grand finale, and Charlton Heston and John Cassavetes have a slew of excellent actors to back them in these many parts, like Martin Balsam, Beau Bridges, Gena Rowlands, and even Walter Pidgeon as a pickpocket.

The plot starts with an unidentified sniper killing a cyclist from a hotel window, and then moving to a rooftop location in the stadium, where a championship football game will be played to a sold-out crowd. One of the more realistic parts of the film is how the screaming, cheering crowd is oblivious of what is happening around them (some of it amusing if...

It only takes one sniper...
It only takes one sniper to cause mayhem at a jam-packed Los Angeles Coliseum in this terribly underrated film that was wrongly tagged as an assembly-line disaster pic or a violent big-budget exploitation film. TWO-MINUTE WARNING gets good performances from leading actors Charlton Heston, Martin Balsam, and John Cassavetes in this well-made suspense thriller of police forces trying to stop a mysterious psychotic sniper from shhoting into a crowd of between ninety and one hundred thousand at a championship football game in the Coliseum. The film concludes with a horrible stampede of panic and horror that has all too accurately been repeated in real life in European soccer violence.

Although it has certain melodramatic elements and an all-star lineup (Brock Peters, Gena Rowland, David Janssen, Jack Klugman, etc.), TWO-MINUTE WARNING mostly avoids the pratfalls common to the disaster genre. And the climax, while indisputably violent (earning the film its 'R' rating) is never...

Good 70's action flick
This is an interesting movie, especially in light of what's happened in this country over the last 30+ years.

Filmed in and around the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1976. Very low tech by todays standards, but that is part of the appeal. It's always fun to see the old cars, fashions and technology.

There is a long list of stars, as with most movies of this era: Charlton Heston, John Cassavetes,Martin Balsam, Beau Bridges, Gena Rowlands, and even Walter Pidgeon as a pickpocket.

The plot revolves around an unidentified sniper during a championship football game with a sold-out crowd. Unfortunately, you never learn his identity, his target or his motivation.

There are some terrible lines in this movie. The acting is fair to good. The best scene was near the end, when the police are shooting it out with the sniper, and the television crews are watching it all from their trailer.

Overall it's a fair movie that's intersting as a...

Click to Editorial Reviews