Scarecrow

Merging the best of the naturalistic 70s style with buddy elements inspired in equal parts by "Waiting for Godot" and "Midnight Cowboy", Schatzberg manages to create an amazingly fluid, fly-on-the-wall-esque restrained portrait of two at once strikingly different and - at their core - very similar bums trying to make it in a world seemingly hellbent on stopping them. The opening - the first five minutes - is one of the most enviably simplistic character introductions ever.

Really, really good this forgotten road/buddy movie. And it's a curiosity in that never in Al Pacino's career has he played this much of a sensitive wuss. This has got everything I love about the early 70's New Hollywood stuff - superb writing, naturalistic dialog, acting and directing that's just great without ever being pretentious.

A quietly moving film, even when Pacino and Hackman are loudly acting at one another, that charms in that sly seventies way that you simply never see anymore. There's nothing about these two guys that makes them seem like good main characters, but there's a natural warmth to the direction and the performances that makes their journey fascinating.

Two drifters, the surly Max (Gene Hackman) and the clownish Lion (Al Pacino), team up, planning to open a car wash in Pittsburgh. But the mistakes of their pasts are not so easily overcome. Palme d'Or-winning character drama, very much a 70s piece, though given a definite lift by Hackman and Pacino, who are as good as you'd expect. (Ann Wedgeworth is also quite good.) The script has its weaknesses (the prison-camp segment goes on too long), but it's well-observed and moving, as is the direction.

Al Pacino in the Seventies -- he never misses. It's like watching Jordan shrugging, you know he knows he's great and you love it. To push the sports metaphor even more, Hackman is Pacino's Pippen. And, uh, let's say Richard Lynch is the basketball. Schatzberg is the hoop.

Feels weird that I had never heard of this given the people involved and the performances they give. Heartbreaking ending

Great opening, nice ending (fountain scene, specifically). Pacino plays an emotional clown to devastating perfection, and Hackman matches him blow for blow. The well of stunning American films from this decade just doesn't run dry.

There were moments [many, in fact] when I was thinking this was damn near perfect.

Wow

I saw this film many years ago and remembered liking it. Seeing it again, it's a largely unheralded masterpiece. It's extremely low on plot, but takes two vividly drawn characters and sends them across America stopping in all the dingiest locations one could find. It's somewhat reminiscent of "The Last Detail", another film from the same year that I love.

Performances are great, the story is good.

I like road trip movies. This one unfortunately takes awhile to build up, loses momentum in the prison, and then ends fairly unsatisfactorily. Strong acting. Fav scene: distant shot of Gene Hackman pummeling Al Pacino's rapist.

Solid performances by two legendary actors in a quirky drama.

Memorable characters, but a bit too plodding.

Sometimes compared to MIDNIGHT COWBOY but closer to CALIFORNIA SPLIT (without the gambling) or FAT CITY (without the boxing), although the attitude to friendship is here a fraction more hopeful. This is a likeable but melancholy drama with only the very occasional touch of schmaltz. The hospital scene at the end is perhaps slightly poorly judged, but mostly this is a fine piece of work by all concerned.

Scarecrow is a decidedly second tier New Hollywood film, but given the greatness produced in that decade that's hardly a slam. As others have noted, it bears all the hallmarks of the gritty character dramas from the period: spare narrative, naturalistic dialogue/performances, a European sensibility and a bleak mood. Hackman and Pacino are excellent as a pair of drifters hanging on to dead dreams, but there are some uninteresting scenes and pacing issues that dampen the overall impression.

The tone of this film cannot be placed -- even when it decides to be a comedy, it can't tell if it wants to be European humour (Pacino) or American humour (Hackman). Nice to see these two actors together and they do fine enough, though as the film goes on we see how disparate their comedy styles are (and the titular analogy is rather embarrassingly forced). Otherwise, I almost liked this film as some of the entire sequences are without this problem, like the jail scene.

mina två favvoskådisar i samma rulle, kan ju inte gå fel. roliga karaktärer, rätt ointressant dock.

72.750

Any movie starring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino in their prime, shot by Vilmos Zsigmond, has to be good. This is another example of the fine form of American cinema in the early 70s, right up to the downbeat/ambiguous conclusion.

I didn't like the directing in the movie but Pacino and Hackman are so great that they make you forget.. What a story..

Great film.