Panic on the 5:22

When I saw this TV flick I was about 13 years old and thought life was a well-tended suburb. This crude little Movie-of-the-Week helped start me on the road to reality.

I don't know how they got it by the feel-good police, but this "movie" gave a pretty good accounting of the stark difference between rich and poor and how awful it can be -- the pathetic hopes of the working-class trio of robbers, the frequent hatefulness of their victims, the inevitability of it all when the robbers know they are caught and the system closes in on them.

> Pretty powerful stuff for the time, and almost impossible to imagine anyone in TV Land green-lighting today. Put it down as "Dog Day Afternoon's" poorer but still worthy cousin -- overwritten and pumped up (but then, wasn't "DDA" as well?) and make sure to catch it on the late show.