Tough Guys Don’t Dance

This unsettling, phantasmagorical exercise in violence, black humor, and sexual pathology is as adventurous on film as it is in Norman Mailer's acclaimed novel. Ryan O'Neil plays Tim Madden whose attempts at determining who has set him up for the murder of his wife take us through a world of dishonest police chiefs and wounded lovers from the past. Mailer's first big-budget film is a fine example of how offbeat characters, edgy humor, and the rampant violence of a town can achieve a terror unsurpassed by expensive special effects.