Extremities

Director: Robert M. Young Robert M. Young

Overview

Farrah Fawcett stars as a woman who is assaulted by a masked attacker and who somehow escapes before the man can rape her. When she reports the crime to the authorities, she is told that nothing can be done as she cannot identify her attacker and no one witnessed the incident.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/19/2015
UPC:	0887090098908
Original Release:	1986
Rating:	R
Source:	Olive
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:29:00
Sales rank:	15,356

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Farrah Fawcett	Marjorie
James Russo	Joe
Diana Scarwid	Terry
Alfre Woodard	Patricia
Sandy Martin	Officer Sudow
Eddie Velez	1st Officer
Tom Everett	2nd Officer
Donna Lynn Leavy	Woman on Phone
Enid Kent	Mother at Police Station
Michael C. Hennessy	Pizza Man
Danika Hendrickson	Joe's Daughter
Michael Hennessy	Pizza Man
Clare Wren	Racquetball Player
James Avery	Security Guard

Technical Credits

William Mastrosimone

Roger Steffens

Robert M. Young	Director
William Mastrosimone	Screenwriter
Thomas Coleman	Executive Producer
Jeannie Epper	Stunts
Michael Rosenblatt	Executive Producer
Burt Sugarman	Producer
Roger Steffens	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Extremities is half of a good movie married to half of a misguided one. William Mastrosimone's script (adapted from his play) has an effective setup, focusing on the battle of the wits between rapist James Russo and reluctant victim Farrah Fawcett. This half of the film is handled in a gripping, believable style, with Robert M. Young's sympathetic direction offering a sleek narrative mechanism that puts the excellent performances of Russo and Fawcett into sharp focus. Russo is frighteningly believable as the aggressor, creating a villain who matches his feral rage with a scary knack for psychological manipulation, and Fawcett does a great job of conveying the fear and pain of a character trying to survive in a terrible situation. Unfortunately, the film becomes far less believable when the heroine turns the tables on her aggressor: the script suddenly becomes an allegorical talkfest when Fawcett's roommates return home, taking on too many issues and straining for plot twists and turns of behavior that defy credibility (particularly the ending). Young's direction and the gutsy, fully committed quality of Russo and Fawcett's performances keep things engaging but the cluttered, unfocused nature of the second half ultimately saps the experience of its overall power. As far as the roommates go, Alfre Woodard is solid as the script's voice of reason but Diana Scarwid turns in a distractingly hammy performance as the weakest link in the group of roommates. To sum up, Extremities is compelling from moment to moment, particularly during its first half, but is ultimately unsatisfying because it can never decide whether it wants to be a thriller or a polemic (and settles for a half-hearted try at being both).