A lesser known Gene Hackman film from the golden box office year of 1977, THE DOMINO PRINCIPLE is pretty silly and occasionally a lot of fun.
Hackman plays a Vietnam war vet in prison for murder. His sentence is even worse because his cell mate is Mickey Rooney as a motor-mouth that loves to tell stories all day. Rooney is so bizarre here, spewing f-bombs and playing hardened criminal, which isnt easy to do when you're like 4' tall.
Hackman starts getting visits in jail from a mysterious wing of the government that would like him to do them a favor. In return, they will spring him from jail.
The breakout is undeniably suspenseful, with Director Stanley Kramer (Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Guess Whose Coming To Dinner) clearly having a good time in the spy genre.
Richard Widmark (Coma, Against All Odds) is a perfect foil as the head of the shady company, Edward Albert is hilariously oily as his muscle and Eli Wallach (The Good, The Bad and the Ugly) is pitch perfect.
Only Candace Bergen seems over her head as Hackman's wife.
The job they hire Hackman for is way more complicated than he anticipates, setting up plenty of crosses and double crosses as he is forced to execute a very high profile assassination.
It's all very seventies, but the action scenes are first rate.
The prison scenes were shot with real inmates at San Quentin and they're not bad either.
Gene Hackman turned down roles in "Jaws" , " One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest ", " Close Encounters of the Third Kind ", and "Apocalypse Now" to appear in this film.
Perhaps its why he's often said in interviews that he's not very happy with his performance.
Even pedestrian Hackman is better than most.
We'll give DOMINO PRINCIPLE a B-.
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