Synopsis
Black Sunday (1977) is John Frankenheimer's political thriller, ready to watch online on iFILM. It grew out of the first novel by Thomas Harris, years before he dreamed up Hannibal Lecter. The target: a Super Bowl packed with eighty thousand fans and the President of the United States.
The scheme is terrifying precisely because it is so workable. A Palestinian cell recruits a burned-out Vietnam vet who happens to pilot the Goodyear blimp. Over the stadium, that blimp becomes a flying bomb lined with thousands of steel darts. Standing in the way is Israeli agent Kabakov, a tired, ruthless man who understands exactly what such an operation costs. The clock is short, and the enemy reads less like a lunatic than a wounded human being, which makes him scarier.
Robert Shaw plays the hunter, Bruce Dern the hunted, and neither reaches for melodrama; Marthe Keller brings an icy calm as the handler pulling the strings. Frankenheimer shot the climax at the actual Super Bowl XI in Miami, so the crowd panic almost plays like footage. The film ran years ahead of itself: decades on, its premise no longer feels like fiction. Stream Black Sunday (1977) online on iFILM.
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