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jeff_v [ 8.0 ]
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Entertaining action film directed by a master of the genre, Don Siegel. Walter Matthau is Charley Varrick, a small-time thief who accidentally steals a large amount of mob money. The police are after him, the mob is after him. Hilarity ensues.
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Dancing_P [ 7.5 ]
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With his hangdog feature and slovenly charm, Walter Matthau hard strikes me as the ideal lead for an action thriller directed by Don Siegel (who, must I remind you, most frequently collaborated with Clint Eastwood). Riding high on the success of Dirty Harry, Siegel delivers a nasty little piece of work more indebted to the studio Bs he cut his teeth on than an Eastwood blockbuster and Matthau's performance accounts for much of it.
In what basically amount to a
perfectly-cast-against-type-but-not-really role, Matthau drops the Oscar Madison shtick for that of a beaten-down, over-the-hill petty thief in over his head. Varrick and his gang (which consists of his wife and Dirty Harry's still-psychotic Andrew Robinson) are small-time bank robbers who knock off small town banks and keep the heat low. They mistakenly hit a mob bank, leaving Varrick's wife dead, an enormous amount of money in Varrick and his partner's hands and a sadistic mob hitman (Joe Don Baker) on their tail.
It's a fantastic film in a resolutely minor way; perfectly realised but ultimately not above the trappings of the genre. Siegel gets much mileage out of the authentic grit that the 70's seemingly bathed in. He pulls no punches and loses no time messing around with pesky subplots. As the film progresses, however, it grows increasingly narrow and obvious in focus. In other words, it
fully accepts the genre but never transcends it. Matthau's weary charm is perfect for the film, resulting in one of his best (and most surprising) performances. It's an oft-overlooked film in both Matthau and Siegel's filmographies but still a notch or two from being an unheralded classic.
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| Weighted Rating | : 7.0 |
| No. Ratings | : 2 | |
| No. Reviews | : 2 | |
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