O Incidente

As I watched this movie this evening, it affected me like a good movie should. In this one, Martin Sheen and Tony Musante are 2 hoodlums who board a subway car and proceed to terrorize/harass the various occupants riding this car. Psychologically, it accomplishes what the director sets out to: Provoke/Stir up Emotions in the viewer. In particular, the atrocities committed against the gay man and Black couple are disturbing, especially given the era in which this film was produced. I was driven to anger watching the responses of the characters. Beau Bridges, Martin Sheen, and Donna Mills are interesting to watch in this film. The ending is something to see, and the very ending provokes some questions to the summation of this film. Recommended to see.

I loved the way this film captured the essence of the 60s. Some people today think the 60s was the decade of long hair and flower power, but for the masses, that was really the 70s. The 60s, and most passengers on the ill-fated train car, were represented by tight clothes, businessmen who still wore hats and nondescript overcoats, and young women with straight, glossy hair. The two thugs who take over the train look like they might have come from a Beatles concert. I liked the realistic gritty look of the interior of the streetcar, with litter on the floor, and a design that seemed to come from about World War I. The outdoor scenes of the train passing by are very grainy, and in their black and white simplicity create an appropriate feel.

The movie is a bit heavy handed, though, in its morality lesson. It's as if the screenwriter had a framed copy of the German missive on the Nazi takeover above his desk: "First they came for the Jews, but I didn't speak out because I was not a Jew, then they came for the communists, but I didn't speak out because....." I simply can't believe that so many people could be so cowardly. The mod guy who freezes up while a bully strokes his girlfriend's hair is too much. And the fact that the bullies essentially insult everyone on the car in turn while everyone looks away doesn't wash either. You know you're next, so why not try to put a stop to it now? The black guy who was so eager to punch a white could have pummeled them both as soon as they let his wife/hostage go. Where did all his anger go? And the gay guy who tried to get off meekly returned when the weaker of the two bullies merely said, "go to your room". He was inches from freedom, and was much larger than Martin Sheen's character.

This movie is worth seeing for its cast alone. It's fun to see such a young Beau Bridges, and to see TV's Ed McMahon in a serious role. Virtually every cast member was known to me, if only as a familiar face from countless other movies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Oh, and I burst out laughing at a scene which probably was originally intended to be very poignant and thought provoking. Blame my recent addiction to Dave Chapelle's comedy. When the police finally come and see the carnage, they immediately try to cuff the black guy, without asking any questions.

With its flaws noted, I recommend this movie as a great time capsule of the 60s, and a study of how cowardice can lead to worse and worse situations.

This film is a parable. I first saw a really lousy print 20 years ago in high school ethics class. I've since taped it off of cable and have shown it to several friends over the years and they are always knocked out by the portrayal of grittiness for the time period. Indeed, this film still feels contemporary.

Those who judge it on the basis of "what I would do in this situation is..." are really off base. First of all, one of the compelling aspects of The Incident is that it develops each character's weakness so that we not only relate to these very identifiable human frailties (which runs the gamut from racism, submissiveness, marital strife, homosexuality, et. al.), but we also understand their particular reasons for not standing up to the thugs. Of course, just because we identify does not excuse the passengers' behavior (or, should we say, failure to act), which is exactly the ethical dilemma presented by the film. Secondly, it is supposed to infuriate and anger us as viewers. As anyone who has worked in or around the law profession knows, the cowardice depicted here is nothing unusual, nor is it unique to NYC. People under stress behave in ways that often boggle the imagination. Remember the stories from the Titanic, for example, about how some passengers acted dutifully and bravely, while others did inexplicably selfish things? The passage of time has not changed human nature.

The ensemble cast is a fantastic whos-who of up & comers from the period. Even Ed McMahon puts in a fully capable performance! The real stand-outs here, however, are certainly Musante, Sheen & Bridges. I'm not familiar with Musante's work on the old TV show `Toma,' but I am disappointed his career never blossomed on the big screen because he's a revelation here. The nature of his character allows him to emote humor, phony compassion and violence, and he succeeds without becoming a maniacal cartoon. And even though we don't know his character's back story, his expressions exude a personal history of frustration that has given way to toughness, hatred and eventually an unstable and violent temper. This, of course, is his character's ultimate weakness. Who knows, maybe Tarantino will give Musante a ring one of these days.

I caught this movie on AMC at 3 o'clock this morning (or so), and was blown away! What a tense, gritty drama - and what a cast! I was trying to figure out who was who, as they were all so young (Ed McMahon? Donna Mills? Ruby Dee without Ossie Davis? Wow!) Martin Sheen's baby face made his psycho character all the more frightening. To me, the movie is a great time capsule of the sixties, and of New York. I do have a complaint to register regarding the AMC channel - instead of squeezing the end credits to make room for commercials for the next movie, how about staying true to your movie fans who have a compulsive need to read the credits, and show them full-screen to the end? Who's with me on this one? Thank goodness for IMDb to get us through!

a truly excellent film with remarkable performances from all of the cast. The film explores a theme of the uncaring New Yorkers which was very much a dominating force here in the mid and late 1960s. Two boys terrorize and essentially hold hostage about a dozen people on a subway car in the early morning hours. The passengers represent a crossection of New York society. It is a film about ones fears in confronting terror...in allowing evil to happen to all around you and doing nothing to stop it. It ends when finally an outsider in that subway car has reached his breaking point. Yet he too is eventually abandonded.

as a New Yorker and a subway buff i really enjoyed the exteriors of the number 4 train although the cars early on are pre 1960 and later on the exteriors are the post 1964 cars...but this is a continuity error that someone like myself would look for.

Along with a very young Martin Sheen...look for Donna Mills as a late teenage virgin..the veteran Great THELMA RITTER and a surprise appearance in a dramatic role by Johnny Carson's sidekick ED MCMAHON