The Domino Principle

Roy Tucker is a Vietnam veteran whose only real skill is shooting, and that skill has landed him in prison on a murder conviction. A mysterious visitor arrives with an offer: his freedom and a new life in exchange for an unspecified favor to be performed later. Tucker accepts, is given a new passport and money, and reunites with Ellie, the woman he loves. When the organization finally calls in the debt, he finds himself with no room to refuse, cut off from his old life and watched at every step.

Stanley Kramer directed the film, the eighth in the list of features he made and his first after Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Gene Hackman plays Tucker, with Candice Bergen as Ellie, Richard Widmark as Tagge and Eli Wallach as General Reser among a credited cast of twenty-one. Adam Kennedy wrote the screenplay, and Kramer produced alongside Lew Grade for the British and American companies behind the picture.

Released in March 1977 and running just under a hundred minutes, the film met with modest responses on IMDb, where it holds 5.7 out of 10 from 3,600 votes, and on TMDB, where it sits at 5.8 from 82 votes. Those figures suggest a thriller that drew a limited but persistent audience rather than broad acclaim.