One of my all time favorites.

best movie i've ever seen.

A Masterpiece!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Cited by many critics as one of the best and most important American movies of the 1970s, Arthur Penn's Night Moves hasn't stood the test of time in terms of popularity. The legacy of the nouvelle vague in France had inspired a whole generation of American film-makers to try new things, and to subvert genres as much as the studios would allow them. This led to a re-emergence of the film noir, a genre stuck very much in the 1940s and 50s. With its chain-smoking, loose- skinned leading men and devilish, glamorous ladies, its tough demeanour is very much a product of the time. A couple of decades later, and filmmakers such as Roman Polanski, with Chinatown, and Robert Altman, with The Long Goodbye, found new ways to explore this dark world and its shady characters, and are widely remembered for it. But no film has been as successful at cutting to the heart of what drives these self- loathing deadbeats and the manipulating bombshells distracting them as Arthur Penn's Night Moves.Private investigator and former American football star Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) works freelance, preferring to gulp down coffees during long stakeouts on his own time than to be on the payroll of a larger agency. His wife Ellen (Susan Clark) tries to shake him out of his stubborn ways, but he's just an old-fashioned sort of guy. This lone wolf approach is in his blood, as after he turns down Ellen's invitation to the cinema, he monitors the situation anyway, discovering that his wife is having an affair in the process. Meanwhile, former actress Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward) hires Harry to track down her missing, promiscuous daughter Delly (Melanie Griffith). A conversation with mechanic Quentin (James Woods) leads Harry to a thrill-seeking movie stuntman, and then to the Florida Keys, where he discovers Delly hiding out with her stepfather Tom Iverson (John Crawford), and a striking woman named Paula (Jennifer Warren).As a straight-forward detective story, Night Moves will likely divide an audience. With its unhurried approach and eagerness to explore Harry's troubled home-life and self-destructive behaviour, the jarring tones may not suit everybody's tastes. Night Moves is much more about the character than the case he is on. The movie mainly succeeds in this balancing act because of the performance of Gene Hackman, an actor working at the very top of his game. In the 70s, he was part of a group of actors who rebelled against Hollywood gloss, and portrayed real people in real situations. Harry is ultimately a good-hearted guy, tragically failing to see the irony when he demonstrates his knowledge of 'check mate' moves in chess to Paula, with sight of own possible fate in the unravelling mystery. As the plot moves on and Harry finds himself caught up in far more than he had bargained for, the revelations become increasingly confusing. But I didn't care: It's the kind of convolution warmly embraced by the Coen Brothers in neo-noir The Big Lebowski. It isn't a masterpiece, but Night Moves deserves to be remembered as one of the most important American movies of its decade.

Years ago, I was a therapist who worked with clients who had been sexually abused. Because of this, I am probably a lot more sensitive to these sort of themes than the average person. And, I found it very disturbing that in "Night Moves" you have an underage actress (Melanie Griffith) performing nude quite a bit. It isn't that she was a big turn on for me...but I worry some depraved guy might really, REALLY love the film simply because you get to see a naked 16-17 year-old. I mention this because viewers might wanna consider that when they are thinking about watching the movie.The story is about a rather earthy and non-glamorous private investigator, Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman). He is odd...oddly distant with his wife, full of ennui and oddly underplayed and nothing like the usual tough guys who played private eyes in the good old days. His job in this one is to locate the runaway daughter of some over-the-hill actress...and considering she pays well, Harry seems more than ready to take the case. The case takes him from Hollywood to the Florida Keys and, oddly, following the case his life is turned upside down and he begins to evaluate himself and the pathetic state in which he's gotten himself...and he's ready to give up the private eye racket. So what's next for Harry? Well, this this only takes us up to the midway point...a lot!This film really excels when it comes to realism. This does mean that the language is VERY earthy for a 1970s film and there's ample nudity as well. Surprisingly, it's not as violent picture as it could have been, considering it was directed by Arthur Penn of "Bonnie and Clyde" fame. Mind you, it IS violent...just not "Bonnie and Clyde" violent! There is, however, a really horrifying death scene out on the water...but also incredibly original and gritty. Overall, well made...and a bit disturbing. Surprisingly, despite being a very good film the studio shelved it for two years because you can only assume they had no faith in the product.By the way, in one scene a lady Harry meets tells him that sharks cannot stop swimming. This is a common myth and many types of sharks indeed stop and rest. In particular, Nurse sharks (common in the Florida Keys) love to lie on the bottom and can go without moving for long periods. The same is true for some other reef sharks...and I've dived around them and photographed them resting away and NOT dying as a result! They should have researched this better, since the lady supposedly lived in the Keys and should have known this.

Screenwriter Alan Sharp's 'homage' to 1940s film noir is really just an extension of the hard-boiled detective numbers Paul Newman and Frank Sinatra gave us in the '60s, except "Harper" and "Tony Rome" were a whole lot livelier. Gene Hackman plays Harry Moseby, a modern-day private eye in Los Angeles who is hired by a former-actress to find her runaway 16-year-old daughter. Moseby, a frizzy-haired workaholic who is suddenly distracted by his wife's infidelity, finds the girl living with her stepfather down in the Florida Keys...where he also comes upon a submerged smuggler's plane and a dead body. Hackman is reunited with his "Bonnie and Clyde" director, Arthur Penn, but neither does first-rate work here; Sharp's facetious script (strewn with unfunny 'witty' dialogue, uncomfortable sexual underpinnings and colorless character exposition) doesn't provide us with an involving scenario--and the segues back to Hackman's troubled marriage to Susan Clark seem perfunctory. Penn manages to stage an exciting climax on the water, but he can't iron out the central character's inner-turmoil, and Hackman's work is peculiarly undistinguished. ** from ****

"Night Moves" is one of the better neo-noirs of the '70s, with Hackman in a similar role to the one Nicholson perfected in "Chinatown" the year before.I think the contribution that the filmmakers of the '70s made to film noir was to create a character who was as lost in the plot as we were. Bogart played a character who was a part of that world. He could manipulate it and duck in and out of it. The private detectives in "Night Moves" and "Chinatown" don't understand it and are fed up with it.The ending of "Night Moves" doesn't have the same punch as "Chinatown", though. It's well handled, but the final twist falls flat because it leaves you with too many unanswered questions. It's entirely possible we're not supposed to understand it, but if this is true, that's not communicated. I didn't find the movie leading up to it incomprehensible enough to indicate this.