The Sniper

Directed by Edward Dmytryk, The Sniper follows a deeply disturbed misogynist (Arthur Franz’s Eddie Miller) as he embarks on a killing spree against the various women he feels have wronged him. Filmmaker Dmytryk, working from Harry Brown’s screenplay, delivers a hit-and-miss drama that ultimately fares best when focused on Franz’s compelling figure, as the actor’s engrossing performance is heightened by the exceedingly tense situations in which Eddie finds himself – with, conversely, the growing emphasis on the police response to the killings, led by Adolphe Menjou’s Frank Kafka, hardly as enthralling as Dmytryk has obviously intended (ie it’s overly dry, momentum-killing stuff, to be sure). (There is, for example, a long and underwhelming sequence set within the mayor’s office that brings the proceedings to a dead stop.) It’s clear, then, that The Sniper benefits substantially from a second half riddled with impressively tense, engaging interludes (eg Eddie loses his cool at a local carnival), while the fairly electrifying climactic stretch ensures that the whole thing concludes on a memorable, positive note – thus cementing the picture’s place as a solid endeavor that also makes good use out of real-life San Francisco locations.

**1/2 out of ****