Two Minute Warning (DVD, 1998)

If you are one of those people who are always looking for a flick that seems interesting.....but never heard of the movie and are intriqued by the title, this film may be one of those.
TWO MINUTE WARNING may be one of those surprize films you never heard of, but it does pack an action punch to it. Released in 1976 by Universal Pictures as one of the so-called disaster movies of the 1970's, TWO MINUTE WARNING stars Charlton Heston as a disgrunted Los Angles Police Captain who has the distinct duty of taking charge of sercurity at a championship football game (footage used from a game that was played between Southern Cal and University of Maryland & used as a so-called "superbowl" game) and the arrival of the President of the United States for a campaign visit. A Sniper who is not known during the entire film enters before the game the Los Angles Coliseum to begin his terror shooting spree in the scoreboard tower.
John Cassavettes is the ego-tistical leader of the SWAT team who takes control to flush out the sniper during the game. When Heston and Cassavettes egos clash, its like two bulls butting heads. Co-starring in the film is Beau Bridges (son of Loyd Bridges of tv's Sea Hunt) as a young family man. David Jansen as a male chauvanist middled age bachlor with Marilyn Hassett as his rich girl friend. Walter Pidgeon as a pick pocketer, Jack Klugman (tv's ODD COUPLE) as a life time betting man who has his life on the line betting on the game with his friend a Priest Mitchell Ryan (of DARK SHADOWS fame).The cast attend the game and are all killed by the sniper after the two minute warning sounds for the game and all out panic begin when the sniper kills.
One of the interesting scenes in this flick: two members of the SWAT team are killed by the sniper and one of the dead SWAT police officers dead body is hanging by his ankle with a climbing line across in the stadium lights above the fans while watching the football game just feet above them, and not one person even notices.
Typical of today's standards by your average football fan? The sniper is finally shot too the brink of a clinging death, and the police stand over him in total hate and anger with no remorse at all for the insane monster sniper (and deservingly so), this scene reminds me of a very similar scene in 1987's FULL METAL JACKET when a sniper was shot by American Soldiers involed in the Vietnam war. Two of those soldiers are Mathew Modine and Adam Baldwin who stand above the Sniper not showing any emotions whatsoever after several of their fellow soldiers were murdered by the enemy sniper!
A final interesting note of interest, when this film was released, a month later at the Univerity of Texas, a sniper opened fired and killed several people before he was finally shot and killed by authorities. Two Minute Warning then just faded out very fast and quietly at the box office in 1976 a few weeks after the sad events at the University of Texas.

CAST: Charlton Heston: John Cassavettes: Martin Balsam: Beau Bridges

Co-starring: Marlyn Hassett: David Jasen: Jack Klugman: Mitchell Ryan

WITH: Walter Pidgeon: Gena Rowlands: and Brock Peters

Directed by: Larry Peerce Rated R

A Universal Picture 1976 126 minutes

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Film Editing of 1976