Straight Time

This month, TCM has been doing a different salute than the normal Star of the Month programming feature, instead honoring stars of the 1970s with more or less one film each. On this final Friday of the month, we have a movie that was in my YouTube TV "library" (the equivalent of the DVR for those who don't do YouTube TV), so I made a point of watching it in order to be able to do a post here. That movie is Straight Time, which kicks the night off at 8:00 PM.

The star being honored here is Dustin Hoffman. He plays Max Dembo, a man who at the start of the movie is just getting out of prison, having been in and out of prison his entire adult life. He meets his parole officer, Earl Frank (M. Emmet Walsh), who informs Max that among the other rules of his parole is that he get a stable job, which sends him to the employment office. There, he meets social worker Jenny (Theresa Russell), new to the job, and he's clearly taken with her. The feeling is apparently mutual, as she's willing to go on a date with him, which seems like it would be a violation of the rules, but then that's just the first violation.

Max gets a job as a cannery, a job that's fairly mind-numbing and doesn't seem suitable to somebody like Max. He also gets a room in one of those "hotels" that's really closer to a rooming house, and it's there that his old buddy Willy (Gary Busey) visits him, shooting up in the hotel room, which is a major no-no for max. Needless to say, Earl visits and finds evidence of the drug use, sending Max back to jail until he's able to have a clean drug test. But it's already cost him his job, and Max realizes he's not going to be able to stay straight, at least not with the friends he has. (One could say with friends like that, who needs enemies?)

But Max, now having nowhere to go and no knowledge of how to stay straight, decides he's going to go back to crime, as long as he can keep from getting caught. He meets fellow robber Jerry (Harry Dean Stanton), and the two of them set about on a series of robberies at least until something goes wrong to screw one of them up. Meanwhile, Jenny is putting her own life and career on the line by continuing to be a romantic partner of Max....

Straight Time is one of those 1970s movies that I think will sharply divide opinion. Some people are going to love that it's daring and willing to challenge the stereotypes of old Hollywood, while others are probably going to feel as though it's a bit aimless, with a lot of gaps left for the viewer to fill and really demanding the viewer's attention. I found myself a bit split on this one. It's not my favorite by any means, but at the same time I didn't exactly dislike it. At the same time, I can easily see why some people would really like it, especially those who see 1970s Hollywood as a breath of fresh air after the strictures of the old Production Code.

So I'd give Straight Time a qualified recommendation. If you know what you're getting into and that's your thing, I think you'll definitely like it. But it's not a film for everybody by any means.