Straight Time is based on the Edward Bunker novel No Beast So Fierce. If you've ever doubted that Dustin Hoffman is a great actor, just see this movie. He plays Max Dembo, a guy who's just out of prison. His parole officer, Earl, is played with M. Emmett Walsh, who plays sleazy as well as anyone ever did.Max gets a job through an employment agency, where a secretary named Jenny (a young and beautiful Theresa Russell) falls for him. Hoffman seems set for the straight life.
But he's not. His old buddy Willy (Gary Busey) pays him a visit and shoots up in the apartment. Earl snoops around later and sends Max to jail, where he's proved to be clean. Earl lets him sit there for a week, anyway. When Earl picks Max up, Max gets his revenge and realizes that he can never live the straight life. He goes back to his old ways, robbing a bank with his good friend Jerry (Harry Dean Stanton). That goes okay, but after that it's all downhill.
I'd call this a noir film if not for the ending. It's close, even at that. I've never read the novel, so I don't know how it ends.
Straight Time isn't a great movie, but it has some wonderful performances by everybody I've mentioned and also Kathy Bates as Gary Busey's wife. Well worth a look if you're interested in the forgotten films of the '70s.
