Marathon man (D)

Adapted by legendary screenwriter William Goldman from his own novel and directed by one of the seventies’ most intriguing filmmakers, John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy), ‘Marathon Man’ is one of that decade’s most handsome thrillers. Dustin Hoffman is Babe Levy, an impoverished history student living in the shadow of his father’s suicide. Daily, Babe tests himself running the streets of New York, but the ultimate test comes when his dubious brother (Roy Scheider) springboards the marathon man into an international conspiracy of diamonds, Nazis and double-crossings. Despite a stand-out performance by Laurence Olivier and some of the most well-known torture sequences in cinema history, ‘Marathon Man’ is perhaps little more than a run-of-the-mill thriller. Accepted as such, it is nonetheless a satisfying one.