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The Chase (1965)

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From Time Out Film Guide

Terror in a Texas town as a prison escapee (Redford), returning home to seek shelter and justice, stirs up a cesspit of hatred, corruption, guilt, lust and racial prejudice. Lillian Hellman's script, based on a novel/play by Horton Foote but emerging as a sort of updated and expanded Little Foxes, sometimes fringes absurdity in trying to indict practically everybody in town as a secret sinner, and in its stagy contrivance (the refugee just happens by on the night of a convention when temperatures are running drunkenly high). But it does manage to weave a credible pattern out of the tangled loyalties and enmities, which Penn's direction takes by the scruff and shakes into a firework display of controlled violence. Terrific performances too, although Brando (undergoing his statutory beating up as the sheriff caught in the middle) rather overdoes the broody bit.

Author: TM

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

usman khawaja said...

Posted on Jul 21 2008 14:25 A great social satire on the circus of violence staged on a summer night in the alcoholic excesses of a saturday night in a savage social setting where sin becomes too obvious to be even punished anymore -a masterpiece

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Jul 21 2008 14:21 Arthur Penn has set the stage for a great social satire on various issues like class distinction ,racial bigotry,saturday night social revelvry,adultery and finally the failure of justice in a breach of the american dream in this taut drama set in a texan town on a warm saturday night .
Redford has broken from prison and a lot of people are afraid for themselves due to a freaky guilty conscience,as they have wronged him and fear revenge and this premise becomes a viloent circus on the american attraction to the glorification of crime and anti-social behaviour.
Fonda As Redfords wife and Brando as the sheriff is trying to find him before he can be slaughtered as a sacrificial lamb by the town people who need a show on saturday night to entertain themselves .
This becomes an extremely powerful indictment of the failure of law to protect anyone as the social order descends to a savage level where people behave like gladiators in a roman arena and this is so convincingly portrayed to give you goose bumps .
The disturbed consciences of a bourgeois drunken rabble are examined in a brutally affective manner by a master craftsman in s beautifully lit movie which moves from daylight through the mayhem of a chaotic night into the light dawn of next day .
This is one of the most powerful dramas i have ever seen and it is a must for anyone who loves quality cinema .
A true masterpiece in the order of Orson Welles and Billy Wilder dramas by a master called Penn ,Brando in one of his life's best roles with Redford and Jane fonda in top form ,also a great supporting cast with Robert Duvall,Bradford,e.g.MARSHALL,Angie Dickinson ,James fox make this a haunting but great piece of dramatic art .
I just love the way penn uses the light and sound to enhance his plot and atmosphere in this masterpiece .

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