Main Character: Nowhere Man

The writing was such that I was never convinced that the Davison character ever really cared about The Movement. Most of the movie shows him as a nerdy, uninvolved joker. Even when his bullying gum chewing friend gets cop-beaten, Davison is not radicalized. Only in the film's last ten minutes, after he senselessly harrasses the Dean's secretary, does he seem to really give a sh-t. By then it's just too late for us to care one way or the other.

Having said that, I must also say that the film's last ten minutes, with the Peace Song pounded out on the gym floor and the mounting suspense and "police riot" are some of the best-choreographed and photographed moments in American cinema. If only the rest of the film had been so spot-on, meticulous, and passionate.