Word: handed
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Voters do not like to be taken for granted. Dealt a political straight flush in a card game no one understands, Jimmy Carter may be overplaying his hand. He's already shown he can't keep a poker face...
...away because the politicians, bemused by the apparently inexhaustible supply of draftable bodies, chose to abandon sound military principles and send them into battle with artificial restrictions imposed on the use of our air and sea power which were the same as sending them to be slaughtered with one hand tied behind their backs...
...thing like the return of captain Bob Allen. Coach Frank McLaughlin said after the game, "The real key is Bobby Allen; he's playing like the old Bobby Allen." That means Allen is helping out under the boards, shooting with a sizzling hand, and, most importantly, acting like the floor leader a captain should...
Friedkin does not pause to answer his question, driving on through increasingly dramatic sequences, fading out and fading in until he leads us back to the disco on Christopher St. This time, Pacino does not refuse the guy who grabs his hand and pulls him to the dance floor. He moves furtively at first, apprehensive. Male bodies fill the cave, twisting, punching, kissing, biting, stroking, tearing. On the wall, a giant neon American flag blinks omnisciently. A man in an executioner's leather mask watches from the side. Pacino's partner spins and flicks his blond curls. The drum pounds...
Friedkin closets his film in ambiguity and elliptical action (he apparently cut several shocking scenes to appease viewers). Though it is superbly photographed in threatening shades of black, grey, blue and purple with effective use of moving and hand-held cameras, neither the characters nor the plot hold enough weight. Pacino has barely 100 lines. He is fine, as usual, but he is little more than Friedkin's pawn; the script never explores his relationships with Allen or Ted beyond a superficial level...