Directed by Ulu Grosbard • 1978 • United States
Starring Dustin Hoffman, Theresa Russell, Harry Dean Stanton

Dustin Hoffman gives one of his most electrifying performances in this riveting story of an ex-con battling for a new life and love in the glare and tension of the big city. After years behind bars, career thief Max Dembo (Hoffman) is finally released on parole. He hopes it will mean a new life, a job, a place to call home, perhaps even a relationship. Instead it’s a one-way ticket to disaster. Before and during the film’s shoot, Hoffman apprenticed himself to Edward Bunker, the ex-con whose book “No Beast So Fierce” inspired the film, resulting in an intensely real, unflinching plunge into the world of a man trapped by both an indifferent criminal system and his own self-destructive impulses.