Night Moves

A cuckolded L.A. private eye (Gene Hackman), who finds his current line of work a far cry from his glory days on the gridiron, takes on the case of a missing teenager (Melanie Griffith) which leads him to the Florida Keys and ultimately has greater ramifications of plundering, sleaze, and murder. Made on the heels of Chinatown and perhaps mirroring that classic a little too closely in terms of plot, Arthur Penn’s Night Moves works marvelously both as a detective story and on an existential, psychological plane while incorporating a snappy, insightful screenplay into an involving story. Hackman shows his unique ability to play a sensitive tough guy and I can't imagine anyone else delivering these lines with such conviction and believability, although Penn doesn't direct the actresses well. **** out of ****