**SPOILERS** The movie "Two Minute warning" is by far one of the best disaster movies to come out out of the disaster-ridden Hollywood studios of the 1970's. It's also one of the most restrained in its holding back the impending disaster, a deranged sniper opening fire in a packed sports stadium, for almost the entire length of the film!
We get glimpse of the sniper whom we only see from the neck down until he's spotted by a camera from the Goodyear Blimp that's broadcasting the championship football game between L.A and Baltimore at the packed, with over 90,000 in attendance, Los Angles Colosseum. It's then that both the L.A police and a SWAT team are called in to surgically, with as little violence as possible, take him out in order to avoid a mass panic at the stadium.
In charge of the LAPD detail sent to stop the sniper is Capt. Peter Holly, Charlton Heston, who despite his being in law enforcement is very reluctant to have his men use violence to take the sniper out. The SWAT team squad leader Sgt. Chris Button, John Cassavetes, is more then willing to use all the fire power available to him to put an end to the snipers plans. It's that reason that creates tension between the two to the point where the sniper is given a free hand, because of Capt. Holly and Sgt. Button squabbling, to get his shots off that in effect ends up killing scores of people, by being shot or being stampeded, by the time the film is over.
What makes "Two Minute Warning" a superior disaster movie is not really the explosive action that happens when the sniper opens fire on the crowd, as well as members of Sgt. Button's SWAT team, but the nerve wracking and nail biting tension that slowly builds up to it. What the audience gets to see is just how difficult it is to subdue, or take out, a determined homicidal, as well a suicidal, maniac when he gets himself into a secure bunker-like position to open fire in a crowded sports stadium! Where in taking him out with deadly force can cause far more damage to the unsuspecting and innocent people in attendance there then even the damage that he could do! We see that in the body count were those killed-in the wild stampede- during the pandemonium a the L.A Colosseum far outnumbered those who were shot to death by the sniper!
P.S The film "Two Minute Warning" was re-edited, for TV, with some 30 minutes inserted into it about the real reason for the sniper's insane actions. In that he was part of a hold-up team, who's job was to distract attention, who were robbing a jewelry store just outside the Los Angles Colosseum. It's as if those responsible for this alternative ending had to give the sniper a reason-like he really needed one-for his actions to make the movie believable to the TV audience. It never occurred to them that a person dead set to murder possibly hundreds of innocent people needs any reasons at all to do it! Besides what, in its original release, the movie made him out to be: A mindless and deranged homicidal lunatic!
We get glimpse of the sniper whom we only see from the neck down until he's spotted by a camera from the Goodyear Blimp that's broadcasting the championship football game between L.A and Baltimore at the packed, with over 90,000 in attendance, Los Angles Colosseum. It's then that both the L.A police and a SWAT team are called in to surgically, with as little violence as possible, take him out in order to avoid a mass panic at the stadium.
In charge of the LAPD detail sent to stop the sniper is Capt. Peter Holly, Charlton Heston, who despite his being in law enforcement is very reluctant to have his men use violence to take the sniper out. The SWAT team squad leader Sgt. Chris Button, John Cassavetes, is more then willing to use all the fire power available to him to put an end to the snipers plans. It's that reason that creates tension between the two to the point where the sniper is given a free hand, because of Capt. Holly and Sgt. Button squabbling, to get his shots off that in effect ends up killing scores of people, by being shot or being stampeded, by the time the film is over.
What makes "Two Minute Warning" a superior disaster movie is not really the explosive action that happens when the sniper opens fire on the crowd, as well as members of Sgt. Button's SWAT team, but the nerve wracking and nail biting tension that slowly builds up to it. What the audience gets to see is just how difficult it is to subdue, or take out, a determined homicidal, as well a suicidal, maniac when he gets himself into a secure bunker-like position to open fire in a crowded sports stadium! Where in taking him out with deadly force can cause far more damage to the unsuspecting and innocent people in attendance there then even the damage that he could do! We see that in the body count were those killed-in the wild stampede- during the pandemonium a the L.A Colosseum far outnumbered those who were shot to death by the sniper!
P.S The film "Two Minute Warning" was re-edited, for TV, with some 30 minutes inserted into it about the real reason for the sniper's insane actions. In that he was part of a hold-up team, who's job was to distract attention, who were robbing a jewelry store just outside the Los Angles Colosseum. It's as if those responsible for this alternative ending had to give the sniper a reason-like he really needed one-for his actions to make the movie believable to the TV audience. It never occurred to them that a person dead set to murder possibly hundreds of innocent people needs any reasons at all to do it! Besides what, in its original release, the movie made him out to be: A mindless and deranged homicidal lunatic!