MovieChat Forums > Two-Minute Warning (1976) Discussion > Was there an intended target?

Was there an intended target?

posted 14 years ago by novastar_6
4 replies | jump to latest

Some people think Jack Klugman's character was intentionally shot by the sniper, I don't think so. Through the movie my mother was asking 'who's he want to kill?', I didn't think there was anyone. I don't think there was anybody in particular he was trying to shoot, but another thought I had, we DID think it would be somebody in the audience, later to the end I started thinking 'what if it's one of the players?', that's an aspect you never really look at, it's always the crowds who are in danger, not the football players, but what if it HAD been one of them? As far as I recall, the sniper never had a motive given, it seems that he just wanted to kill as many people in one place as he could for the hell of it...I think that's the most disturbing part, that we never find out the why, we're only left guessing, which is oh too often the unfortunate case in real life.

[–] dejavu73 13 years ago

The real target is a common curiosity and it has been wilfully left unsettled.
But when the shoting starts it seems the sniper is targeting Sam McKeever (Martin Balsam) and getting Steve (David Janssen) instead.
As a matter of fact, we can't say if these were his real targets since the beginning of the shoting overlaps with the killer's rampage for having being discovered by the S.W.A.T. agents who are hunting him. From then on the sniper's purpose seems to become more a personal vendetta than the execution of a planned killing. Anyway, both cases head to the same point since the final carnage goes random.

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[–] jrs-8 13 years ago

No it is another weakness of the script that the intended target is never revealed. It has been a while but I remember it was either the President or the Governor who was headed to the game and that was aborted. Thankfully we have a cast of characters that the sniper can conveniently shoot at.

[–] richard-III 12 years ago

I don't find it a weakness. There's a number of possibilities, and it adds to the suspense for an audience to think them over. But my bet is on the President, maybe together with the Governor and the Mayor, a nice bundle of V.I.P.'s.

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[–] Hey_Sweden 13 years ago

I prefer that sense of not knowing if the sniper had a specific target. Makes it scarier that way, knowing it could be anybody.

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