Straight Time

Straight Time (1978) — watch online on iFILM this unsparing crime drama directed by Ulu Grosbard and built around one of Dustin Hoffman's least-celebrated but most committed performances.

Max Dembo walks out after seven years inside and makes a genuine attempt at a straight life: job, apartment, a relationship with a woman played by a very young Theresa Russell. His parole officer — a petty power-addict played by M. Emmet Walsh — systematically dismantles every foothold. One violation, real or manufactured, sends Max back. When he gets out again, he stops pretending. Harry Dean Stanton and Gary Busey round out the supporting cast. The script comes from Edward Bunker's autobiographical novel No Beast So Fierce — Bunker himself appears in a small role.

What keeps this film from feeling like a standard fall-from-grace picture is Hoffman's refusal to make Max sympathetic in the usual ways. The man is prickly, proud, not particularly likable — and that's the argument the film is making about what prison does to someone. Stream Straight Time (1978) online on iFILM.