End of the Game (1975)

“Sometimes we imagine things; sometimes things happen in our minds; sometimes they happen in reality. It is our job as policemen Walter to separate them, then maybe, maybe we have a chance to stumble on the truth. Maybe soon.” – Hans Bärlach

Number of Times Seen – 1 (24 Feb 2020)

Brief Synopsis – Following the murder of a police officer, his partner and boss try to find the motive for the killing along with the culprit.

My Take on it – This is a film that I came across by accident and was quite intrigued by both the synopsis of things and by the spectacular cast.

Unfortunately, despite both having much promise, this film clearly wastes them which is such a shame.

The movie tries to tell this mystery in a very strange way and that takes away much of the suspense or mystery of it all.

They show the crime and its repercussions from a very weird perspective and that also hurts things too much.

Despite the cast featuring Robert Shaw, Jon Voight, Martin Ritt and Jacqueline Bisset, they all seem quite wasted in these roles and don’t manage to find ways to move the story along in a competent way.

The script does have some great scenes with very powerful dialogue and conversations between characters, but they are too few and far between to make enough of an impact on the rest of the story.

The story plays out in a very unconvincing manner and the fact that there are too many issues that remain unresolved by the end also hurts things too much here.

Bottom Line – Intriguing premise that fails completely, The story is told in a very strange way which takes so much away from things, There is no suspense what so ever here and the mystery is presented in a very weird fashion. The film has a great cast, but they all seem wasted here in these roles that don’t manage to do anything. The script has some great scenes of dialogue but that only occurs part of the time which is a shame. The way that things play out isn’t convincing enough and there are too many lot threads that are left unresolved and open which also hurts things.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Robert Shaw claimed that he never received his fifty thousand dollar salary. (From IMDB)

Rating – Razzie Worthy (3/10)