I ran the NYC Marathon this year. Since then, one of my coworkers keeps calling me Marathon Man, so I decided to mark the achievement by watching the movie of the same name.

The car chase scene in the beginning of Marathon Man is reason enough to watch the movie. It is the most ridiculous car chase scene ever filmed. It involves two geriatric men driving a pair of clunkers, in an alarmingly slow chase through crowded NYC intersections. I know this movie isn’t a comedy, but that chase had me rolling.

After I finished the movie, I met my girlfriend for lunch. I told her all about Marathon Man, that it starred Dustin Hoffman and a very old Sidney Poitier, and that Poitier plays a Nazi. Her very legitimate question: “There were black Nazis?” Whoops. Laurence Olivier, not Sidney Poitier. Two very different actors who have kind of similar sounding last names. Imagine that movie: Sidney Poitier as a black German who joined the Nazis disguised in white face and is now hiding out in South America.

How cool is Roy Scheider as Doc, Dustin Hoffman’s secret agent brother? The answer is “so cool.” I was upset when he died, because it meant no more of his bad-assery.

I’m glad that Dustin Hoffman’s character Babe’s marathon training came into play as he made his escape from the bad guys. But I did think it was kind of a cop-out for him to take a cab back to his uptown apartment. Sure, you’re half-naked, bleeding and just escaped a Nazi torturer, but that’s no reason to hop in the back of a yellow cab! You’re a Marathon Man, Babe! Pump those legs!
I watched Marathon Man the day before a scheduled dentist appointment. If I realized the bad guy was a Nazi dentist, I might have watched The Running Man instead.