Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageScarecrow (1973)
Director: Jerry Schatzberg
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A tale with a moral about two drifters who meet on a deserted highway, and find antagonism gradually replaced by curiosity, need, trust and love. Lion (Pacino) clasps a present he is taking to the kid he deserted all those years ago; Max (Hackman) is an ex-con moving a step closer towards his dream of a self-owned carwash. Their relationship is charted like a love affair, full of petty jealousies, little tricks to forestall bad moods, recriminations, regrets. Then Schatzberg throws away the more interesting implications in order to make emotional hay. The pair land in prison, their relationship is tested by the grim realities they find there, and we are off into an embarrassing last section which ends with Max mourning over Lion's catatonic body. A pity - there could have been a movie in there. As it is, Scarecrow owes a lot to Vilmos Zsigmond's photography and little to Garry Michael White's over-insistent and finally rather silly script.Author:
Cast & crew
Director: Jerry Schatzberg
Producer: Robert M Sherman
Cast: Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, Dorothy Tristan, Ann Wedgeworth, Richard Lynch, Eileen Brennan full cast
Duration: 115 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Review: Penélope Cruz more raunchy than ever in 'Nine'
Dave Calhoun reports on Rob Marshall's Oscar-touted musical with Daniel Day-Lewis playing a troubled director
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Jim Jarmusch on 'The Limits of Control'
Jim Jarmusch has followed ‘Broken Flowers’ with an esoteric crime mystery. Dave Calhoun speaks to him from his New York office
Richard Linklater on 'Me and Orson Welles'
Dave Calhoun meets the 49-year-old, Houston-born filmmaker Richard Linklater to discuss his new comedy
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now