James Caan is a thief recently released after eleven years in the slams. Somebody owes him money and he collects it -- out toughing the possessors. This boldness impresses the Big Man, Robert Prosky. Prosky, who has a finger in every meretricious pie, delivers the money personally and invites Caan to join him in his organization. The benign, agreeable, avuncular Prosky and his team will plan out jewel robberies, pay for equipment, and so forth, and Caan and his partner, Jim Belushi, will execute the plan for a given percentage of the take.
Caan, an expert thief in every way, is reluctant. He's always been his own boss. But he has a problem. He needs money to hire a good lawyer to get his friend, Willie Nelson, out of the slams. Nelson is terminally ill and would rather die on the outside than on the inside, though he never explains the logic of that position.
Caan meets Prosky and agrees to one last caper. Prosky not only agrees but sees to it that Caan gets a ranch house in the suburbs and that he and his wife, Tuesday Weld, are able to adopt a baby.
Well, I pretty much foresaw a bad end for Jim Belushi as the cheery partner of the main character, close enough to be on hugging terms with him. And when the Belushi family and the Caan family spend a few days frolicking on the beach together, with still almost half an hour to go in the film, I figured Belushi was dead meat.
Most of the movie is about as formulaic as that. Prosky has promised Caan almost a quarter of a million for pulling off a long, risky, highly technological heist, but after the job he hands Caan an envelope with only a tenth that amount. Additional expenses and all that. Not to worry, though, because Prosky has a dozen other scores lines up for Caan.
Caan balks and winds up semi-conscious on the floor with Prosky standing over him, viperous in his wrath. Before his goons dump Belushi's body in what seems to be a vat of acid, Prosky tells Caan that Caan has no gratitude. That Prosky now OWNS him and he will do as he's told, otherwise he and his family will find life increasingly unpleasant. "I'll put your **** of a wife on the street and ******* and ****** ****** will **** her in the ***!" Caan gives all his accumulated money to his wife and child and kicks them out. Then he walks away from the final shoot out wounded but alive.
The story is basically sound and Caan's part is well written, if not as well delineated or nuanced as Dustin Hoffman's in "Straight Time." Caan plays it nicely too. He's particularly good in a scene in a coffee shop in which he explains the subculture of inmate life to an engrossed Tuesday Weld. If the plot is predictable, it's still engaging.
The problem is that the direction sucks. I'll give an unimportant example. Near the beginning, after Caan has warned the white-collar crook that he expects his money back, he has to leave the office and walk through a room full of nerds and female secretaries. They're all sitting and staring at him and his gun -- except one woman who is standing in the corner. Caan lifts his pistol in a two-handed grip, aims it at her, says "Sit down," then lowers it and walks out the door. Why did he do that? Why aim a pistol at a terrified young woman in order to get her to sit down? Why get her to sit down? What the hell does Caan care whether she's standing or sitting; she's in a state of tonic immobility like a frozen mouse. How did that take find its way to celluloid? Caan has been drawn as the essence of cool. He should have strode through the room like an expressionless Superman, his pistol at his side.
I said the example would be small, but there are too many multiple small examples. I think there are four shooting deaths and one wounding. Every one of them is in slow motion. So is the body dumped in the acid. There are two explosions -- ditto. Ho hum.
And the musical score is atrocious -- pounding, edgy, distracting, loud electronic guitars and percussion that could have come straight from a skin flick. That approach isn't necessarily inappropriate in a crime thriller -- if it's used judiciously. Wang Chung had it just about right in "To Live and Die in L.A." But this score is simply unimaginative noise and should be reserved for the exclusive use of the CIA in torturing prisoners.
On the whole, above average performances; average script; bad marks for direction and score.
Caan, an expert thief in every way, is reluctant. He's always been his own boss. But he has a problem. He needs money to hire a good lawyer to get his friend, Willie Nelson, out of the slams. Nelson is terminally ill and would rather die on the outside than on the inside, though he never explains the logic of that position.
Caan meets Prosky and agrees to one last caper. Prosky not only agrees but sees to it that Caan gets a ranch house in the suburbs and that he and his wife, Tuesday Weld, are able to adopt a baby.
Well, I pretty much foresaw a bad end for Jim Belushi as the cheery partner of the main character, close enough to be on hugging terms with him. And when the Belushi family and the Caan family spend a few days frolicking on the beach together, with still almost half an hour to go in the film, I figured Belushi was dead meat.
Most of the movie is about as formulaic as that. Prosky has promised Caan almost a quarter of a million for pulling off a long, risky, highly technological heist, but after the job he hands Caan an envelope with only a tenth that amount. Additional expenses and all that. Not to worry, though, because Prosky has a dozen other scores lines up for Caan.
Caan balks and winds up semi-conscious on the floor with Prosky standing over him, viperous in his wrath. Before his goons dump Belushi's body in what seems to be a vat of acid, Prosky tells Caan that Caan has no gratitude. That Prosky now OWNS him and he will do as he's told, otherwise he and his family will find life increasingly unpleasant. "I'll put your **** of a wife on the street and ******* and ****** ****** will **** her in the ***!" Caan gives all his accumulated money to his wife and child and kicks them out. Then he walks away from the final shoot out wounded but alive.
The story is basically sound and Caan's part is well written, if not as well delineated or nuanced as Dustin Hoffman's in "Straight Time." Caan plays it nicely too. He's particularly good in a scene in a coffee shop in which he explains the subculture of inmate life to an engrossed Tuesday Weld. If the plot is predictable, it's still engaging.
The problem is that the direction sucks. I'll give an unimportant example. Near the beginning, after Caan has warned the white-collar crook that he expects his money back, he has to leave the office and walk through a room full of nerds and female secretaries. They're all sitting and staring at him and his gun -- except one woman who is standing in the corner. Caan lifts his pistol in a two-handed grip, aims it at her, says "Sit down," then lowers it and walks out the door. Why did he do that? Why aim a pistol at a terrified young woman in order to get her to sit down? Why get her to sit down? What the hell does Caan care whether she's standing or sitting; she's in a state of tonic immobility like a frozen mouse. How did that take find its way to celluloid? Caan has been drawn as the essence of cool. He should have strode through the room like an expressionless Superman, his pistol at his side.
I said the example would be small, but there are too many multiple small examples. I think there are four shooting deaths and one wounding. Every one of them is in slow motion. So is the body dumped in the acid. There are two explosions -- ditto. Ho hum.
And the musical score is atrocious -- pounding, edgy, distracting, loud electronic guitars and percussion that could have come straight from a skin flick. That approach isn't necessarily inappropriate in a crime thriller -- if it's used judiciously. Wang Chung had it just about right in "To Live and Die in L.A." But this score is simply unimaginative noise and should be reserved for the exclusive use of the CIA in torturing prisoners.
On the whole, above average performances; average script; bad marks for direction and score.