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Watching Dustin Hoffman writhe in the dental chair is no one's idea of a good time, but Director Schlesinger brings off some excellent set pieces: a bloody mano a mono between two homicidal operatives in a Paris hotel room, Hoffman, a shell-shocked amateur, be sieged in his own bathroom by highly efficient adversaries. The movie, like its unwilling hero, has untapped reserves of energy, much of it frittered away in incidental sermonizing (Devane, snidely: "I love my country"; Olivier, ironically: "So did we all"). Threading its way through big-city blight (garbage strike in Paris, baggage strike at J.F.K. Air port in New York, and violence on every street in town) and leaden irony (Olivier pursued through Manhattan's 47th Street diamond district, where Jewish merchants abound), the movie sets its own reckless obstacle course. It is a tight race all the way between action and pretension and, at the end, a photo finish.
Jay Cocks