cult film freak: BRUCE DERN WITH MARTHE KELLER & ROBERT SHAW 'BLACK SUNDAY'

Bruce Dern in BLACK SUNDAY Year: 1977 Rating: ****

At the peak of Bruce Dern's 1970's career playing insane, frantic characters, Palestinian terrorist Marthe Keller cautiously asks if he has the deadly contraption... that shoots tiny shards upon explosion... ready as Dern quickly answers, finishing what he thinks she was really getting to, "Do I feel CRAZY today?"

She's the perfectly patient black widow moll to Dern's off-kilter Vietnam vet, who flies the Goodyear blimp over football games and will soon work the targeted super bowl... while on the heroic side is another contrary team-up in Robert Shaw's brooding yet effectively lethal Israeli commando with edgy, bickering sidekick Steven Keats...

Steven Keats and Robert Shaw in BLACK SUNDAY

Basically, John Frankenheimer's BLACK SUNDAY cuts back and forth to the terrorist and anti-terrorist duos with an eclectic hybrid of burgeoning suspense equaled with brisk modern day action...

And while about twenty-minutes too long, that time's never wasted, ultimately occurring above, then within and eventually beyond that super bowl while the best sequences had already occurred in more effectively subtle pockets leading up... and without seeming like one of those mainstream movies that builds to a predictable crescendo since are several peaks throughout: for both the characters and the audience.