It is those events that are closer to reality, with John Savage and Ted Danson wanting to wear civilian clothes in the US military by investigating a pair of suspicious species. Things seem to be going terribly wrong, as one of the men kills Danson in cold blood. As for Savage, he managed to escape and the men were arrested, but that is not good.
It's the usual heavy Wambaugh brew: police procedure closely observed without a trace of romanticism, suggesting simply that life in the force is psychological hell.
Ranks among the best crime films of the late 1970s...and that puts the flick among some rather impressive company.
Variety
March 26, 2009
James Woods as the near-psychotic Powell is chillingly effective, creating a flakiness in the character that exudes the danger of a live wire near a puddle.
The film is generally crisp and at times exciting, but it's also full of incidents that are only sketchily explained, and minus the all-important narrative thread that might have provided a clear point of view.
The Onion Field is a serious and most uncompromising movie. It lacks, however, the sort of disciplined craft that might have made it a powerful and affecting one.
