I very much enjoyed seeing this again after many years. (It was on Turner Classic Movies recently.) I don't mind an ambiguous ending, but I sure would like to know if Axel killed Charlie, or if he just knocked him out.
Anyone have an opinion?
Another note about the ending: I think the scene at the very end was filmed as an afterthought.
In the previous scene Cassevetes tells the big boss to call the detective back. The original script could have had the boss calling the detective back, Cassevetes tells the detective what really happened, the detective arrests Jack Warden.
But that would be dramatically somewhat unfulfilling.
So they added the scene where Cassevetes beats up Warden.
He didn't kill him. He was dragging him to the police. Why didn't those other black guys on the job break there legs off in Charlie's butt for Sidney?
shareWhether he killed him, I don't think even Axel knew the answer, and he didn't care. He was taking Malik to the police one way or another, dead or alive. I just kept wondering where the foreman was during the different times of conflict between his workers.
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