Roy Scheider as the sleepiest cop-on-the-edge I’ve ever seen. He’s maybe a crazed, shell-shocked Vietnam vet but so much of his dialogue is ADR’d (probably because of helicopter noise but I wouldn’t be surprised if Scheider was so bored by the movie that he couldn’t bring himself to enunciate his lines) that he comes across as more a somnambulist than anything. I suppose if you’re an actor who’s looking for a quick and easy paycheck, being offered a role that is 80% sitting down is a pretty sweet deal.
Remarkably, the film redeems itself with a spectacular final 30 minutes.I’ve come to expect so little actual excitement from 80’s action movies (as so often what passed for thrills are second unit shots of machine gun fire and fiery explosions) that when John Badham climaxes with a fantastic helicopter duel (it’s to his credit that I couldn’t figure out exactly how much of it was actually shot in the air above Los Angeles and what was achieved via special effects, models, etc.) I was ready to forgive him. Previous to that the only person I could get on board with was Warren Oates, who adds another great performance in both the pantheon of compelling Warren Oates performances and the pantheon of hilarious police captains. B-
Martha Marcy Nash and Young 