In its two unsubtle references to Franz Kafka, Stanley Kramer's The Domino Principle seemingly means to impress on us the immensity of what its protagonist finds himself within - a network of such reach and influence and connection that any attempt at defiance or assertion of free will is doomed to failure. But the effect, if anything, would be instead to point out the relative artistic blandness of Kramer's film; how the character's dilemma largely fails to illuminate anything meaningful about power and connection, or about our own natures, at least not in the way it intends to. Gene Hackman plays Tucker, languishing in prison with at least fifteen years left on his murder sentence; the unnamed organization, fronted by Richard Widmark's Tagge, offers him freedom, a well-funded new identity, and a resurrected relationship with his wife (Candice Bergen), all in return for unspecified services to be performed later (given that the movie starts off by flashing the term "Assassination" on the screen in several languages, the services will be obvious to the viewer at least). It might seem like a simple narrative weakness that of all the available stooges in all the country's prisons, the organization chose in Tucker just about the most contrary, uncooperative subject imaginable. On the other hand, that points to the most intriguing sub-textual question - if these guys (they're mostly although not exclusively guys) are so powerful, shouldn't their control on things be tighter, removing the need for such expensive, drawn-out convolutions? In this sense the movie resonates against incomprehensible contemporary theories of the "deep state" and the like, which mainly serve as rather plaintive assertions of (if not disguised wishes for) dark underlying order, even as all the evidence only suggests we're being dragged into increasing global chaos and erosion. Kramer's direction is perhaps a little more fluid than his sticky reputation suggests, leaving aside the thumping quasi-sermon at the start, but given such fanciful underpinnings it's all doomed from the first narrative domino.

i thought that this was a very intriguing movie to say the least. Gene Hackman, Eli Wallach, Richard Widmark, Candace Bergen so you have a cavalcade of stars. our story follows a man in prison with no real hope of ever seeing the light of day until he is approached by a mysterious man claiming to work for a government organization, he tells our prisoner he can be let go out of prison,, free to walk, he must only do one thing.... kill the President. for some reason our main character brings along his cellmate who he really despises.. our bad guys quickly eliminate the loose end. our prisoner is given a new identity but really doesn't change his looks that much. he reluctantly agrees to go ahead and carry out the mysterious mans orders. here's where i will leave it so you can watch it and tell me what you think.

First, it takes a full half hour to get Hackman out of jail and to start doing the job. What a waste of time, we all know Hackman is getting out to do some job for his masters, why waste almost a third of the movie on these sequences. Then Hackman stays in a hotel and the story arc again goes nowhere, simply proving to us that Hackman is under close watch and anything he says or does is know by the masters. Again, another 20 minutes. Then more wasted time showing the reunion with his wife. All of this should have taken 10-15 minutes at most simply as a set-up for the real action, intrigue and plot twists. By the time the real action gets going, I was so bored that I just wanted the movie to end. Hackman is great as usual, and the other actors as well, but this is a dud of the first magnitude.

The odd man out (in quality), Stanley Kramer's The Domino Principle taps into the some of the same paranoiac conspiracy gunk that glops up our thinking to this day, and drives the same ground as The Parallax View, Executive Action, Enemy of the State, JFK, etc.Should I go on? And yet, I remember enjoying the book and the movie, not only because I was one of the unwashed masses way back when, believing in anything conspiratorial, but because it seemed out of the norm. I was raised on TV cop dramas, where everything was wrapped up in 52 minutes and I could count the times the bad guys won on one hand.I won't give enough away to have to mark the spoiler box, but The Domino Principle, headed by Gene Hackman and followed by a really strong cast, has bad guys fighting worse guys--a concept foreign to my prime time sensibilities.I remember liking the movie, but after thirty years, I'll be lying if I told you I can remember much about it.With that in mind, I'd say rent it--if you can find it--and throw in Parallax and Executive for a triple-header of evil industrialists, mind-controllers, and sad, little heroes trying to avoid getting squashed.Then return to the real world and repeat the following: "Oswald acted alone."