Customer Reviews

Lost Man

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Starting with a gripping, truly firstclass title score and equally touching, well fotographed views of Philadelphia's poor downtown neighbourhoods, this film spirals gradually downward and left me disappointed. The script ist bad: Most of the time people stand around and don't really have to say much to each other - you almost feel pity for the actors who certainly would have been able to deliver better performances, if the script had allowed them to.
The movie is based on the same story as Carol Reed's Odd Man Out - in my opinion one of the best movies of all times. Odd Man Out focuses on the main character, his doubts, his desperation and the reaction of the people he meets as a helpless, severely wounded man on the run after falling off a getaway car rushing from the scene of a robbery he had planned.
The Lost Man, by comparison, does never appear to be really lost. He can contact his friends easily after he escapes alone from the scene of the robbery, despite a bullet wound he appears to be in perfect physical condition, and apparently it poses no problem to pass through road blocks as long as you have a social worker handy who loves you, does not question your motives - and owns a station wagon. I suppose that the attitudes of the characters can be explained by the political and social climate of the late Sixties but it is sad that nobody let Sidney Poitier do in this film what James Mason did in Odd Man out.

THIS MOVIE IS THE FIRST TRUE BLAXPLOITATION FILM, LONG BEFORE THERE WAS A SWEETBACK, SHAFT, OR SUPERFLY. SIDNEY POITIER'S PERFORMANCE, AS ALWAYS, STANDS OUT. AT THE TIME THIS MOVIE WAS ORIGINALLY RELEASED (1969), THE CRITICS AND THE PUBLIC CRITICIZED MR. POITIER FOR BEING THE PERFECT NEGRO IN HIS PREVIOUS FILMS (IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, GUESS WHO COMING TO DINNER, THE SLENDER THREAD, DUEL AT DIABLO,ETC). HOWEVER, IN THE LOST MAN, MR. POITIER PORTRAYS A 1960'S REVOLUTIONARY WHO MASTERMINDS A DARING ROBBERY THAT GOES WRONG AND PLACES HIM ON THE RUN FROM THE POLICE. A FINE SUPPORTING CAST WITH A EDGE OF THE SEAT, NAIL-BITING CLIMAX THAT WILL LEAVE YOU BREATHLESS.FOR A FILM THAT IS OVER 30 YEARS OLD, THE MOVIE STILL HOLDS UP VERY WELL AND IS ANOTHER PIECE OF THE POWERFUL BODY OF FILM WORK OF SIDNEY POITIER.