It's too bad they didn't really film Jim Thompson's novel, which remains one of the most astonishing pieces of pulp fiction ever written, yet Sam Peckinpah does a professional job with this much-watered-down version (1972). It becomes a conventional chase picture with Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw as an outlaw couple fleeing for the Mexican border after a bank job; Al Lettieri is the sadistic, double-crossed partner on their trail. With Sally Struthers, Ben Johnson, and Slim Pickens; a young Walter Hill wrote the screenplay. PG, 122 min.
TV monitor. Sun 3/21, 6 PM.
By
Dave Kehr
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