Straight Time

The screenplay was written by Alvin Sargent, Edward Bunker, and Jeffrey Boam, based on Bunker's novel No Beast So Fierce.[5] Michael Mann served as an uncredited co-writer on the project.[5]

Filming of Straight Time took place primarily in Los Angeles County, including Sylmar and Burbank, with additional photography occurring in San Bernardino.[5] Principal photography began on February 9, 1977 at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, California, near Sacramento.[5]

In addition to portraying the lead character, Hoffman was originally hired to direct the film, and, according to producer Jerry Ziesmer, completed one day in this role.[5] Ziesmer recalled that the first day of shooting at Folsom State Prison consisted primarily of a basic establishing shot, and that Hoffman requested constant camera resets, resulting in not a single frame being captured by the days' end.[5] With the studio concerned about Hoffman's ability to complete the project in a timely manner, Hoffman stepped down as director, after which Ulu Grosbard was hired.[5][6][7]

The film became the subject of litigation between Hoffman and the First Artists Production Company over creative control. Before Hoffman had finished editing the film, First Artists exercised a clause to take over the project since the shoot had gone 23 days over schedule and approximately $1 million over budget. Hoffman's lawsuit alleged that his right to the final cut had been violated and that the take-over clause did not mean he forfeited all creative control. First Artists' countersuit claimed that Hoffman's "derogatory statements" damaged the film's reception and box office performance.[8] The outcome of the litigation has not been disclosed.[5]

Vincent Canby of The New York Times praised Straight Time as "a leanly constructed, vividly staged film" that "makes no attempt to explain Max. It simply says that this is the way he is. It requires us to fill in the gaps, and it's the measure of the film that we want to."[9] He also praised the performances, particularly those of Hoffman and Russell.[9]

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film four stars out of four and called it "a superior thriller, a riveting portrait of an ex-con," adding, "Most criminals in American movies are drooling, trigger-happy psychotics. In 'Straight Time,' the criminals are people, and, somehow, that's more disturbing ... Credit ultimately must go to Hoffman, who continues to avoid playing the million-dollar cardboard roles that so many of his peers are drawn to."[10] At the end of the year he named it the best film of 1978.[11] David Ansen of Newsweek wrote, "Though made up of familiar elements - an ex-con, bank robberies, lovers on the run - it is an unusual movie out of today's Hollywood and a very fine one. Small in scale, grittily realistic, charged with a fierce intelligence about how people live on the other side of the law, the film makes few concessions to an audience's expectations, but it has an edgy, lingering intensity."[12]

Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it "riveting to watch from start to finish," adding, "Hoffman's Max has less dimension than some of his earlier characterizations. You wish his fight [to go straight] had gone on a little longer. But his cool, hard disillusion, his unsentimental realism and his fatalistic attitude toward a life that never got going makes its own impact."[2] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety panned the film as "most unlikable" because Hoffman "cannot overcome the essentially distasteful and increasingly unsympathetic elements in the character. Ulu Grosbard's sluggish direction doesn't help."[13] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote that there were "authentic, gripping moments in the film" but "in some unavoidable way [Hoffman] just doesn't look threatening and ruthless. You're tempted to console him rather than run from him. The cunning and aggression that one might accept immediately if actors like Robert De Niro or Harvey Keitel were cast as Max are only theoretically apparent in Hoffman."[14]

The film has a score of 82% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 11 reviews.[15]

In 2003, The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list.[16]