bkoganbing For years down to this day since seeing Black Sunday in the theater I've always watched major sporting events with this film in mind. That's the kind of thoughts that director John Frankenheimer plants in your mind with a viewing of Black Sunday.Black September the Palestinian terrorist organization of the day and the ones responsible for the slaughter of Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich have something special in mind for America at one of our major sporting events. Israeli intelligence Mosad learns of it and the guy who learned of it is dispatched to the USA to stop it.Robert Shaw is the agent that is sent and he gives a carefully controlled performance of an Israeli assassin. The kind you send out after Arab assassins. Shaw is quiet and deadly and most effective in his acting.The other side is represented by Marthe Keller and note that she's not a traditional Moslem woman in her style of living. Nonetheless both she and Shaw have suffered immense personal tragedies which has brought them to their respective positions. Keller has found a former Navy Pilot who was a Vietnam POW Bruce Dern who is more than slightly unhinged. After a court-martial he's bitter against the USA and wants to commit an atrocity and he has a very specific atrocity in mind. All three of the leads acquit themselves well in their roles. But the real star is the special effects and an ending that for the last half hour will have you on the edge of your seats.I predict your reaction to Black Sunday will be the same as mine. You will never watch a major sporting event without this film in the back of your mind.

Predrag This movie, based on a book by Thomas Harris ("Silence of the Lambs" and "Red Dragon") is a terrific action-thriller about a terrorist plot to inflict mass casualties upon attendees at a Super Bowl game. Robert Shaw portrayed the operative determined to stop the plot. His methods were extremely direct and effective he simply eliminated terrorists wherever he encountered them (except during a moment of weakness, when he came upon Marthe in the shower, at the first of the film, which proved to be a costly mistake). Shaw's character acted in a totally unilateral fashion, never halting to form a coalition or obtain United Nations approval. Bruce Dern played a crazy Vietnam Vet who helps the bad guys. This is suspense thriller with a brain, so don't expect wild action from scene one. It builds slowly, with sporadic action scenes interspersed, as it aims toward it's climax at the big game. From the almost documentary-like opening title sequence, devoid of music and replete with the sounds of a foreign land, this suspense epic builds slowly and with unique conviction. The terrorists are all played realistically and no one goes overboard into the realm of ham. Shaw is gritty and and steel-eyed as he works against the clock to stop the plot. Ironically, the film's Achille's heel are it's special effects near the film's end. Cinematographer John Alonzo was allowed to handle the effects shots and later, the director had to redo most of them at the last minute. The result is that by today's standards, the film falls short of being totally convincing in several scenes. Nevertheless, the editing was wonderful, the score huge, the acting great, and the story intriguing. It more than makes up for a few of those shots.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

sol- Government agents from the United States and Israel team up to prevent a Palestinian terrorist attack on American soil in this action thriller directed by John Frankenheimer. The film notably provides an insight to the way the terrorists think. Of the two main terrorists, we learn that the female one (a Palestinian, played by Marthe Keller) grew up repressed with her family killed. The male one (an American, played by Bruce Dern) is a Vietnam War POW camp survivor whose life was torn apart defending a country that has done nothing for him, adrift after the army convinced his wife that he was dead. The relationship between the pair is curious too as it is unclear whether Keller is just using Dern due his army connections and disgruntlement. Unfortunately neither the chief FBI nor the chief Israeli agent are half as interesting, and the film is a whole lot less enticing when focused on their attempts to stop Keller and Dern, who get up to some fascinating mischief, experimenting with weaponry. Despite their solid characters, Keller and Dern are hardly top rate (her accent is overdone and his high-strung emotional scenes sometimes ring false), but the weakest element here is the fact that the central action (involving the blimp on the DVD covers and posters) is confined to final half-hour with over an hour and half (!) of dialogue-heavy exposition leading up to it. The climax is hardly memorable enough to justify the build-up. Never to mind, a powerful music score by John Williams constantly drums up suspense while the terrorist insights render the film less biased than one might expect.

Brian Roesch Yes this was a great story, but the way this movie was filmed is remarkable. You'll never see a film made today where the actors were filmed in the middle of the biggest game of the year The Super Bowl. And filming real teams and real players. You have to look into the director's work and what he accomplished to get the movie done. The 70's was a time where you could get close to the players and the stars without the annoying security of police and secret service we are inconvenienced by today. Post 911 will never allow a director to get away with making a movie like this ever again. I would like nothing more than to see a sequel but that's impossible since the teams would fictitious along with penned names. My father in law Jack Adams worked for Wilson Sporting Goods back in this era and walked directly in to the 1972 undefeated Miami Dolphins locker room unscathed where every player including Bob Griese himself signed a football for him.