Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details
|
Reviews
Amazon.com
An almost absurdly star-studded cast brings to life Horton Foote's story of prejudice, violence, and frustrated love in The Chase. When Bubber Reeves (Robert Redford) escapes from prison, a drunken party in his hometown turns into a vigilante mob. The news disrupts the birthday celebration of a local oil tycoon (E.G. Marshall), whose son (James Fox) is having an affair with Reeves's wife Anna (Jane Fonda). Meanwhile, a bank vice-president (Robert Duvall) knows his wife (Janice Rule) is cheating on him but can't do anything about it except spread a little misery. The sheriff (Marlon Brando) struggles to hold things together until he can persuade Reeves to give himself up. The accents are thick and the emotions seem overwrought at first, but director Arthur Penn (Bonnie & Clyde , Little Big Man) weaves the multiple storylines together into an unsettling finale. Also featuring Angie Dickinson and Miriam Hopkins. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brando sans pareil,
By
This review is from: The Chase [DVD] [2004] (DVD)
The Chase is an excellent early film of Arthur Penn and every scene is imbued with intelligence.The story is simple:prison escapee Bubber Reeves(Robert Redford) returns to his hometown in search of shelter and justice,and manages, on the night of a community convention,to stir up a tsunami of guilt,corruption,lust,betrayal and violence,lurking not far beneath the surface.Penn imbues the story with a clarity and depth of vision to give it a mythic resonance as well as contemporary relevance.Brando was never better as a conscientious public servant.Based on a play by Horton Foote,The Chase offers Penn's vision of a modern capitalist society in which the norm is victimization and greed,and the superficial mores and codes governing "polite behaviour "are simply for show.There is a constant tension between surface and reality,and as the film progresses,the strict social distinctions and structures witnessed simultaneously in 3 parties(those of Val,the Stewarts and the teenagers) begin to corrode, until at the end anarchy reigns as order breaks down completely(appropriately in a central junkyard).A sense of violence seething under the skin of a community is palpable,Penn's close work with the actors subtly revealing their characters in evidence. Redford lying tired and soaked on a river bank after his arduous escape excitedly miming the act of shooting geese,or the fidgeting,uncomfortable manner of Sheriff Calder(Marlon Brando)in his formal attire for the convention(after we have seen him rigorously and lengthily get himself ready).This is a moral film,engaging with the whole concept of morality and human experience,uneasy bedfellows.It succeeds in conveying the immediacy and primacy of violence and social conflict.Penn never looks down on his characters nor lectures.He understands the source of violence,what its costs and effects areand he burns in the flames with the rest of us.A great starry cast,Brando the clasp holding it together,a standout performance giving life to the story.
27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not great ... but good,
By Barton Keyes "barton keyes" (England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Chase [DVD] [2004] (DVD)
Difficult though it may be to think of it now, in 1966 both Robert Redford and Jane Fonda were only on the threshold of super-stardom. Brando was, of course, an established star by this time -- but still with the modesty and professional curiousity to explore "interesting" parts. The Chase gives him full scope to do this through the character of the fundamentally good and upright town sheriff -- a role that enables him to investigate both the problems of policing a small Texas town full of seething emotions (only just below the surface) and the conflict that one man has to face within himself and as a consequence of his public duty. The screenplay -- by the talented Lillian Helman from a book by the brilliant and prolific Horton Foote -- is tight, multi-layered and full of excellent thow-away one liners that rattle off the hides of the generally unpleasant minor characters without leaving any visible moral impression. The combination of three leads together with the excellent support of Robert Duvall, Angie Dickinson and EG Marshall gives this little piece a cast that would be impossibly uneconomic to put together again within a few years (although Fonda and Redford reunited the following year for the frothy Neil Simon comedy Barefoot in the Park). Not great but an interesting period piece from when America was just about getting uncomfortable with some of the truths about itself -- which little films like this were doing their bit to reveal.
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
re-evaluating a masterpiece,
By usman "usman latif khawaja" (london -havering -u.k) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Chase [DVD] [2004] (DVD)
Arthur Penn has set the stage for a great social satire on various issues like class distinction ,racial bigotry,saturday night social revelvry,adultery and finally the failure of justice in a breach of the american dream in this taut drama set in a texan town on a warm saturday night .Redford has broken from prison and a lot of people are afraid for themselves due to a freaky guilty conscience,as they have wronged him and fear revenge and this premise becomes a viloent circus on the american attraction to the glorification of crime and anti-social behaviour. Fonda As Redfords wife and Brando as the sheriff is trying to find him before he can be slaughtered as a sacrificial lamb by the town people who need a show on saturday night to entertain themselves . This becomes an extremely powerful indictment of the failure of law to protect anyone as the social order descends to a savage level where people behave like gladiators in a roman arena and this is so convincingly portrayed to give you goose bumps . The disturbed consciences of a bourgeois drunken rabble are examined in a brutally affective manner by a master craftsman in s beautifully lit movie which moves from daylight through the mayhem of a chaotic night into the light dawn of next day . This is one of the most powerful dramas i have ever seen and it is a must for anyone who loves quality cinema . A true masterpiece in the order of Orson Welles and Billy Wilder dramas by a master called Penn ,Brando in one of his life's best roles with Redford and Jane fonda in top form ,also a great supporting cast with Robert Duvall,Bradford,e.g.MARSHALL,Angie Dickinson ,James fox make this a haunting but great piece of dramatic art . I just love the way penn uses the light and sound to enhance his plot and atmosphere in this masterpiece . the alcoholic excesses gone wrong on a hot summer night in a texan bougeois community , culminating in a mockery of justice and social values - truth in it's naked glory.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
