Straight Time (1978)

Dustin Hoffman is a lifelong crook struggling to get straight and clinging to crime as an identity in Straight Time (1978). He's only been out of the poky for a week, and already he's fought with his parole officer, M. Emmet Walsh, who wants nothing more than to see him back in the slammer. If that isn't bad enough, his best friend's wife wants him out of her husband's life, and the straight world just keeps getting narrower and narrower until Dustin just can't figure out a way to make himself fit it. Despite having tasty Theresa Russell by his side, he can't take the ho-hummery of it all, and soon he's back perpetrating with the best of them. Harry Dean Stanton joins him in his greedy thievery, and a young Gary Busey and an even younger Kathy Bates show up in this little-seen character study featuring one of Dustin's greatest performances.