Dustin Hoffman is a grad student and running enthusiast (hence "Marathon Man"), the younger son of a blacklisted historian who suicided 20 years previous. He is close to his brother Roy Scheider, but thought him to be in the oil buisness until a fateful visit to New York.
Roy was on the trail of escaped Nazi war criminal Laurence Olivier (who himself would play a Nazi hunter only 2 years later in 'The Boys from Brazil'). Now Roy's partner William Devane proposes to use Dustin as bate to flush the old Nazi out. Swiss actress Marthe Keller is Dustin's love interest, and she's hidding something.
An at times rather good and at times rather slow thriller. Directed by Joseph Schlesinger ('Midnight Cowboy', 'The Falcon and the Snowman') and based on a novel by 'The Princess Bride' author William Goldman; in fact it's the book he wrote immediately after 'The Princess Bride', and perhaps the book fills in this films plot holes. ***
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