Tag Archives: Robert Redford

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Posted on August 16, 2020 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Conflict behind enemy lines.

Based on the true story of Operation Market Garden that occurred in September, 1944.  The strategy was, in an effort to hasten the end of WWII, to have allied forces drive into Germany and lock up key bridges, which would then block any attempts at German escape, but errors in judgement and planning occurred that caused many unnecessary casualties.

At the time this was one of the most expensive films every produced, but the reaction from critics was tepid.  While the producers insisted that every attempt was made for accuracy they also admitted to taking certain liberties for logistical reasons, which ultimately did not go over well with everyone. Many friends and spouses of the soldiers depicted in the film who were still around at the time complained about what they felt was misrepresentation in regards to what really happen and threatened to sue the filmmakers for libel.

Despite some obvious flaws, which can occur in any film that is this long, I came away quite impressed and even genuinely moved by what I saw. Some of the most memorable moments for me was seeing the parachute drop of thousands of allied paratroopers onto the Netherlands. It is one thing to see old pictures of this, and there are many available, but a completely other thing to have it done via live action in living color.  Another moving scene features Robert Redford reciting a prayer out loud as he and other men maneuver a boat across a river while bombs and artillery fire blast all around them, which is so vivid it made me tense up like I was at risk of getting hit just like the other men.

Another running segment I really liked dealt with the army taking over a couple’s house that was right next to a crucial bridge by barging in unannounced and turning the place into their headquarters. So many other war movies that I’ve seen have never shown this side of battle where innocent pedestrians and homeowners can literally just lose all of their rights on-the-spot and have no recourse. Watching their home get more and more torn-up  by the army as the film progresses is both darkly comical and horrifying as is the eventual mental breakdown of the home’s family.

Many of the complaints that critics had about the movie resided around the large cast and how certain actors were miscast especially Ryan O’Neal as Brigadier General James Gavin. While I admit O’Neal is a weak actor in most cases I came away feeling he did quite well here although if you see a picture of the real Gavin the two look nothing alike. My main criticism in this area was more around the appalling amount of money that the cast made with all of them collecting a fee of $250,000 per week, which would come out to $1,157,540 in today’s dollars while Redford made $500,000 per week that came out to $2,315,000. Now I have nothing against actors making as much money as they can, but many of the parts were just walk-ons and had only a few lines, so to make that kind of money for that little of work seemed obscene, but I guess if I were one of them I wouldn’t complain either.

A much bigger problem was the extreme shifts in tone and a misguided use of music. War time flicks, especially those made in the 40’s and 50’s had a lot of music, which was fine for the period, by many post 60’s films tried to stay away from an excessive soundtrack in order to capture more of the sounds of battle and heighten the realism. This movie though seems to want it both ways having virtually no music during the first-half and then suddenly without warning bombarding the viewer with a lot of it during the second-half, which gets the viewer caught up in the natural sounds of war only to ultimately take them away from it by the end.

While the film has many serious moments it also allows some quirky comedy to seep in, which like with the music issue came-off as jarring and unnecessary. Older war movies kept things on a patriotic level, but post 60’s the trend was to be irreverent, which in movies like Catch-22, can be done brilliantly. Here though it cheapens the effect making the viewer wonder how authentic it is when trendy, modern sentiments get haphazardly thrown-in.

Overall it succeeds at showing the absurdity of war in a profoundly visual way as we see first-hand the brutal injuries and deaths of the soldiers just trying to carry out their orders while the general who came up with the bad plan that killed so many sits in his plush office far removed the destruction that he created and never forced to face the horror of his mistakes.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: June 15, 1977

Runtime: 2 Hours 55 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Richard Attenborough

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Epic, Historical Drama, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, War Movies

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The Electric Horseman (1979)

Posted on June 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Aging cowboy steals horse.

Sonny (Robert Redford) used to be a championship rodeo star, but those days are long behind him. Now he works as a spokesmodel for a cereal company and his next gig has him in Las Vegas where he’s set to ride a horse on stage while he wears a string of flashing lights. Sonny though has become disillusioned with the business as well as upset to find that the horse has been drugged, which propels him to ride off with it while the authorities and an aggressive TV reporter (Jane Fonda) are hot on his tail.

The story can best be described as a lightly comical variation of Lonely are the Brave, but without any of the strong dramatic impact. The biggest problem is that it reveals its cards too quickly making it too obvious what Sonny is planning to do, so when he finally does y abscond with the horse it’s not surprising or even interesting. I was intrigued at how he would get it out of the casino and past security, but the movie cheats this by cutting from him inside the casino one second to showing him outside on the street in the next frame, which takes away from potential action and excitement of having him fight his way out.

The chase inside a small town where Sonny and his horse outrun a mob of police cars and cops on motorbikes is fun, but it ends up being the only exciting moment in the film. Everything else gets toned down too much where even the bad guy, played by John Saxon, is boring because all he does is sit in a office while getting reports from others as to Sonny’s whereabouts instead of having him actively chase after the renegade cowboy himself, which would’ve heightened the tension.

Fonda’s character comes off like an unwanted house guest who tries to take over the place even when they weren’t invited. Her character is too abrasive and while everyone else is laid-back she comes of as being quite aggressive and otherwise out-of-place with the tone of the movie. Valerie Perrine, who has a much smaller part as Sonny’s ex-wife, does a far better job here and is more in step with the unglamorous, rugged western theme. Had she been the one to chase after Sonny then the romantic side-story that develops would’ve been cute and engaging, but having Fonda become the love interest just makes the whole thing seem forced.

Had the action and humor been  more jacked-up than it might’ve been a winner as Redford himself is quite good. I was a bit surprised too because I initially didn’t think this was the right fit for his talents, but his subtle country accent and brash attitude is fun and Willie Nelson, in his film debut, is quite good in support. Unfortunately the plot never catches its stride and in fact the more it goes on the boring it gets.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: December 16, 1979

Runtime: 2 Hours 1 Minute

Rated PG

Director: Sydney Pollack

Studio: Universal Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (Region B/2)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Dry Humor, Revisionist Western, Romance

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Out of Africa (1985)

Posted on June 14, 2019 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 9 out of 10

4-Word Review: An illicit love affair.

In 1913 a wealthy Danish woman named Karen Dinesen (Meryl Streep) gets spurned by the man she is in love with, so on the rebound she decides to accept the marriage proposal of the man’s brother, Baron Bror Blixen (Klaus Maria Brandauer) Despite the fact that neither she nor he are in love with the other, but decide to make it a marriage of convenience. They move together to Kenya where they plan to at first start a cattle farm, but it soon turns into a coffee plantation. Through the years Karen’s marriage to Bror begins to sour as he continues to have affairs with countless other women, so Karen turns her attention to the dashing big-game hunter named Denys (Robert Redford) and the two share a passionate and adventurous love affair, but when Karen tries to turn their relationship into a committed one he refuses.

The film, especially the first hour, comes off more like a broad sketch than a fluid story, or a highlight reel taken from a wide outline. I could never really get any type of handle of who this Karen person really was. I never understood why she would want to leave Denmark for Africa, or why she’d be so quick to settle down with a man that she didn’t love. So what if she got spurned by one guy there’s still other fish in the proverbial sea. Why not wait around for someone she could truly be excited about instead of just jumping in with someone that she really wasn’t?

To some degree I did find the marriage-of-convenience idea an interesting one. It’s rare that both parties admit that neither has the hots for the other, but still decide to make a go of it, which seemed like highly modernistic behavior especially for the time period and I was hoping this whole scenario would be explored more, but the film treats this mainly as a side-story that pretty much fades away after the first hour.

The introduction of the Denys character gets a bit botched too as he keeps popping in and out at the most convenient times out of literally nowhere, like when Karen finds herself ready to be attacked by a lion, and then just as quickly disappearing again almost like he were a magical genie.  The fact that Streep puts in so much effort into her Scandinavian accent, but Redford puts none into conveying an English one is off-putting. Supposedly Redford did initially try to speak with a light accent, but director Pollack apparently found it ‘distracting’ and advised him to speak without it, but in the process it makes the acting seem uneven.

It’s during the second-half where the film really comes together as it focuses solely on the affair though in real-life there was only a two year difference between Karen and Denys, but here there’s a 12 year difference between the actors playing the part and it shows, but despite that discretion this segment really works. I loved watching the different things that the couple did like playing a phonograph record to some monkeys and seeing how they responded to it and watching Karen taking an airplane ride for the first time and all the majestic scenery that she takes in.

The cinematography is indeed sumptuous and one of the things that holds it altogether even when the script jumps precariously and sometimes jarringly from one point in Karen’s life to another. The film would’ve worked better had it focused on only one area, like her relationship with Denys, which could’ve helped create a stronger, more immediate emotional impact with the viewer while also cutting down on the excessively long runtime.

My Rating: 9 out of 10

Released: December 10, 1985

Runtime: 2 Hours 41 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Sydney Pollack

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Academy Award Winners for Best Director, Academy Award Winners for Best Picture, Academy Award Winners for Best Screenplay, Epic, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Romance

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The Milagro Beanfield War (1988)

Posted on September 24, 2017 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Small town fights developer.

Milagro, New Mexico becomes the centerpiece to controversy when a rich developer (Richard Bradford) decides to build a resort, which cuts off the water supply to the rest of the struggling inhabitants of the nearby town. Joe Mandragon (Chick Vennera) is one of those farmers who is frustrated with the current situation and in a fit of rage kicks a water valve, which allows water to flow into his field where he soon begins to grow beans. Kyril Montana (Christopher Walken) is then sent in by the rich tycoons to ‘settle-the-score’, which only helps to make the town’s resistance to the development even stronger.

The film is based on the 1974 novel by John Nichols and was directed by Robert Redford eight years after he helmed his first feature the very successful Ordinary People. From a completely technical standpoint the film shines in all areas as it delightfully mixes whimsical comedy with harsh real-world issues and manages to keep the tone consistent throughout. My favorite element was the difficulty the activists had in getting the townspeople  ‘on-the-same-page’ and organized to fight their mutual enemy, which illustrated one of the biggest challenges to fighting for social change where just trying to convince and mobilize others is sometimes the toughest part.

John Heard has the film’s best character arch playing a former political activist who dropped out of trying to change-the-world years ago, but after sufficient prodding finally gets back to his old form in one very fiery and memorable moment. Walken is quite good in reverse playing a man sent to initially squash the rebellion only to eventually soften a bit (just a bit) on his stance. Carlos Riquelme is delightful as the elderly Amarante who despite being weak with age fights-the-good-fight including a hilarious scene where he precariously tries to drive a bulldozer.

I wasn’t quite as crazy about Daniel Stern’s inclusion. He plays his part well and the character is likable, but I didn’t understand the need for him in the story. It almost seemed like the filmmakers didn’t trust that the Hispanic cast alone could carry it and a white guy needed to be added in in order to usher in a more mainstream demographic. Vennera is weak only because he constantly reminded me of Bruno Kirby Jr. and could’ve easily passed off as his twin in both his looks and voice.

The only argument I would have against the film, which is otherwise a charmer and does not in any way deserve the outrageous R-rating that it was given, is the addition of Robert Carricart as the Coyote Angel that only Riquelme’s character can see. To an extent this cheapens the struggles that the townspeople go through because it gives what is otherwise a serious problem too much of the fable-like treatment. I would’ve preferred a grittier approach focusing solely on the efforts of the people to create the change, which would’ve left a stronger emotional impact and avoided telegraphing the idea that it was all going to work-out due to this extra magical force.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: March 18, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 57 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Redford

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Dry Humor, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Spiritual Movies, Surreal/Fantasy

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Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Posted on June 15, 2017 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating:  4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Who can he trust?

Joe Turner (Robert Redford) works at a New York City CIA office, which fronts itself as a literary agency for historical books. One day Joe decides to sneak out the back way in order to grab some food at a local deli. While he is away a team of assassins headed by Joubert (Max Von Sydow) enter the place and kills everyone inside. Turner, who goes under the code name Condor, returns to find his co-workers dead and no idea who did it, or why. He contacts the CIA headquarters, which is run by Higgins (Cliff Robertson), but soon decides he can’t really trust them and attempts to somehow find a way to survive on his own without returning to his apartment, as he is afraid the killers may be there. Through sheer desperation he kidnaps a woman (Faye Dunaway) at gunpoint and forces his way into her apartment where he hopes he will be able to buy himself enough time until he can figure out what is going on.

The film, which is based on the novel ‘Six Days of the Condor’ by James Grady, has an intriguing set-up, but ultimately gets ruined by having a protagonist become too skillful and shrewd at everything until he ceases to be just a regular guy on the run. For instance he is able to get into a telephone switchboard center much too easily and then uses the skills he had apparently learned as an Army Signals Corps technician to trace a call and find the whereabouts of the bad guy, but this is something a regular person couldn’t do and thus the tension is lost because it’s no longer just an everyman trying to survive, but instead a super-smart individual with convenient knowledge for every situation.

The script has too many situations where the bad guys make unbelievable dumb decisions as well making it seem that the odds really aren’t as stacked against our hero as it initially seems. For instance there is a scene where Redford invades the home of the CIA Deputy Director (Addison Powell) who is supposedly the man behind-the-scenes who had ordered the hit. Redford sits in a downstairs office of the home and plays music very loudly from a stereo until it awakens the CIA director and he comes down to investigate, but wouldn’t you think someone who works in a secret organization would know enough not to walk into a trap as he does here, but instead call the police if he heard a noise downstairs, or if he does come down at least do it while also holding a gun? Also, as a CIA director living in a mansion he should certainly have his home rigged with a security system, but Redford is able to get inside without a sweat even though we are never shown how. Also, why does Sydow the hit man not shoot Redford when he is alone with him in an elevator, which would be a perfect opportunity instead of waiting and trying to do it later at long distance when the two are outside and Redford is in a middle of a crowd and much harder to target?

The film’s lowest point though comes with Redford’s relationship with Dunaway. Only a woman with severe mental problems would magically ‘fall-in-love’ with a stranger in less than 24-hours after he accosts her with a gun and forces his way into her apartment. Even if one would argue that it’s the Stockholm syndrome it’s highly unlikely it would occur so quickly.  There’s even a stylized love making scene that seems too similar to the sex scene in another Dunaway film The Thomas Crown Affair. Besides with all the stress that Redford’s character was going through I’d think he’d be unable to perform in bed, or concerned that she was simply leading him on in order to put him in a vulnerable position, so she could take advantage of it and escape.

Von Sydow’s character, who’s willing to switch allegiances almost instantaneously depending on who’s paying him, is the only truly unique thing about this otherwise shallow thriller. Director Sydney Pollack, who appears briefly as a passerby on a sidewalk, does give the material the slick treatment and captures New York City nicely. There is also a well-choreographed fight scene inside Dunaway’s apartment, but the unsatisfying, limp ending leaves open too many unresolved issues.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: September 24, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 57 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Sydney Pollack

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Spy/Espionage

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Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)

Posted on January 21, 2017 | 2 comments

little-fauss-1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Their friendship doesn’t last.

Little Fauss (Michael J. Pollard) is a motorbike racer who is shy, has few friends and still lives at home with his parents (Noah Beery Jr., Lucille Benson). Halsy (Robert Redford) is a brash womanizer whose been kicked out of the racing league for drinking on the track. He befriends the timid Little and conspires with him to race in his place while splitting the winning proceeds 50/50. Little’s parents do not approve of Halsy and feel that he will be a bad influence, but Little sees this as an opportunity to break away from his parent’s while befriending someone whose lifestyle he idolizes. Things start out poorly and only get worse particularly when the they meet up with the free-spirited Rita (Lauren Hutton) who chooses Halsy over Little despite the fact that Little has a crush on her.

The film has a nice gritty feel to it and the harsh desert landscape helps accentuate the hardened, rough living characters. The racing footage is also well done and just like with Downhill Racer, which was a film about skiing that Redford did just before this one, the viewer feels like they are in the middle of the action driving the motorbike along with the characters with wipeouts and crashes are real and at certain spots genuinely violent. I also enjoyed Benson and Beery’s performances and wished they had been in the film more as well as the opening tune sung by Johnny Cash although it became distracting when it gets played later on and should’ve been contained over the credits only.

Redford gives a stellar performance playing a character unlike any he has ever done and he does it convincingly to the point that the actor’s son in real-life considers this to be his father’s best onscreen achievement. Pollard though is solid too in a part that he seemed almost born to play. The two, who apparently didn’t get along well behind-the-scenes, play off each other in interesting ways and the movie only works when the two share the screen and is draggy when they don’t.

The story has its share of decent dramatic moments but it is also quite predictable. Redford’s character is completely unlikable and I would’ve liked one moment where he did or said something nice, or at least given us more of a background for why he turned out at being the way he was. The way Little outgrows the friendship and eventually becomes more confident and self-reliant is rather formulaic and like with most everything else in the film one can see coming long before it happens, which eventually makes the viewing experience of this thing feel almost like a nonevent.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: October 21, 1970

Runtime: 1Hour 38Minutes

Rated R

Director: Sidney J. Furie

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Drama, Movies with Nudity, Sports Movies

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All the President’s Men (1976)

Posted on December 17, 2016 | 3 comments

all-the-presidents-men

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: They take down Nixon.

In the early morning hours of June 17, 1972 five men are found burglarizing the Democratic Headquarters at the Watergate Office complex in Washington D.C. The next day a young Washington Post reporter by the name of Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) is assigned to cover the case. Initially it was considered only a minor story, but as he digs further into the details he finds wider connections including links that lead directly to the White House. Together with Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman),who is another reporter, the two men continue to research and end up battling one roadblock after another in their quest the uncover the truth.

If there is one area where this film really scores in it’s in the way that a journalist’s job gets portrayed. In fact many colleges show this film to their student who are majoring in the field in order to given them a realistic perspective of what the profession actually involves. For me I found it quite enlightening particularly the first hour. The many people and steps that a reporter has to go through just to get one solid lead is interesting as is the protocol system determining which story gets the front page and which don’t.

The layout of the newsroom was also fascinating as it all seemed very authentic and like they were working in an actual one. To my absolute shock I found out later that it had all been constructed on a film set, but so meticulously done that you couldn’t tell the difference. Initially several scenes were filmed in the real office using actual employees in the background, but the knowledge of being on camera made some behave in ways that they normally wouldn’t and this ultimately forced the filmmakers to decide to recreate it on a soundstage and use actors as the office crew.

The performances by the two leads are good, but neither of them resembles their real-life counterparts. Both Redford and Hoffman were already pushing 40 at the time and looking it while Woodward and Bernstein were still in their 20’s when this story occurred so the line that the Jack Warden’s character makes about these two being ‘young and hungry’ and looking for a good story to build their careers on doesn’t make as much sense.

The characters aren’t well fleshed out either. No time is spent on what these guys were like when not ardently following up leads, which is absolutely all we see them doing.  The original screenplay, which was written by Woodward and Bernstein, had a subplot involving the two trying to score with women, which would’ve helped add a comical touch and parts of that should’ve been kept in.

The second half lags as there are too many leads and names that get bantered about that don’t have faces connected to them making it seem like information overload that doesn’t help the viewer get as emotionally involved as they should. Having cutaways showing Nixon and/or is aides becoming increasingly more paranoid as the reporters closed in on them could’ve added that much needed extra dimension.

There is a stunning bird’s-eye shot of the inside of the Library of Congress, which is amazing and the fact that many of the scenes get filmed at the actual sites where the real-life instances occurred is both impressive and commendable. I also enjoyed the wide-array of recognizable faces that show up in bit parts including Valerie Curtain as a frightened source and Polly Holliday as an evasive secretary. They even cast Frank Wills the real-life security guard who broke the case wide open playing himself in the film’s opening scene, which is cool even though for me the film’s second half fails to be as entertaining as the first, which prevents it from being a classic.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: April 4, 1976

Runtime: 2Hours 19Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Academy Award Winners for Best Screenplay, Academy Award Winners for Best Supporting Actor, Buddy Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels

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This Property is Condemned (1966)

Posted on August 18, 2016 | 5 comments

this property

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Mother pimps her daughter.

Owen Legate (Robert Redford) arrives in the small town of Dodson, Mississippi in the 1930’s to carry out an unpleasant task. He’s been assigned by his employer to layoff many of the railway workers in the area due to the economic depression. Many in town are not pleased with his presence and want him to go while even threatening him with violence. Alva (Natalie Wood) is the only one who takes a liking to him despite the fact that he consistently gives her the-cold-shoulder in return. She’s been forced by her mother (Kate Reid) to ‘entertain’ the male guests that stay at their boarding house and Owen wants none of it as he finds her dreamy, child-like personality to be off-putting and even an illness. Yet the longer he stays the more entranced with her he becomes, but he wonders if he’ll ever be able to get her away from the clutches of her domineering Mother.

This film was considered by critics at the time to be ‘trash’ and that was most likely due to its provocative subject matter that was clearly years-ahead-of-its-time, but with a script written by Francis Ford Coppola and Fred Coe, produced by John Houseman and directed by Sydney Pollack in a story based on a Tennessee Williams play couldn’t be all that bad and this clearly isn’t and in fact it’s excellent and should be considered a classic instead. The recreation of The Deep South from the ‘30s is spot-on and the on-location shooting done in the small town of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi lends some terrific atmosphere. The dialogue is sharp and the well-paced script leads to emotionally charged scenes of high drama.

Redford’s cool and detached persona is put to great use and I liked seeing a scenario where it’s the girl chasing after the guy for a change. Mary Badham is equally good in her first film after doing To Kill a Mockingbird, but here she is much more attractive with long hair and sans the Tomboy look. There is also solid support from both Charles Bronson and a baby-faced Robert Blake who just three years later reteamed with Redford in Tell Them Willie Boy is Here.

Wood gives an excellent performance as well, but I had a hard time understanding her character as her perpetual flights of fancy didn’t make much sense. The script seems to say that this is her ‘defense’ and escape from her harsh life, but any woman whose been forced into prostitution by her mother and pawed at by literally every man who comes along would most likely become hardened and bitter and learn to distrust and dislike any man who came near her.

Kate Reid as the mother also posed some initial problems as she looks too young for the part and in reality was only 8 years older than Wood who played her daughter. However, there is a birthday celebration where she is given a cake full of candles to blow out, but she refuses as she feels that 43 is getting ‘too old’, which made me realize that back then people had kids earlier even before they were 18 and therefore her still youthful look by our standards could be forgiven and even understood.

The final half is where this thing really comes together and includes a great confrontational moment between a drunken Wood, who really did get drunk in order to get into the scene, as well as her picturesque journey to New Orleans. Like in most movies the odds of her suddenly bumping into Owen after a couple of short days in the city seemed pretty slim, but I could forgive it as the rest of the film is so strong that any minor flaw with it is hardly worth discussing.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: August 3, 1966

Runtime: 1Hour 50Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Sydney Pollack

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

5 Comments

Posted in 60's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in the South, Romance

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The Hot Rock (1972)

Posted on June 25, 2016 | Leave a comment

hot rock

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Stealing back stolen gem.

Having just been released from prison Dortmunder (Robert Redford) has no intention of ever going back because if he does it will be life, but even so he still can’t help but get caught up with the enticing offer that his brother-in-law Kelp (George Segal) has planned. The idea is to steal a valuable jewel from a New York museum where Dr. Amusa (Moses Gunn) will pay top dollar for what he believes was stolen from his African ancestors during colonial times. He even offers to help fund the mission and everything goes well until Greenberg (Paul Sand), who is one of the men on Dortmunder’s team, gets caught with the diamond and forced to swallow it. He then hides it inside the police station after he was forced to relieve himself. Now sitting in prison he promises the others he’ll show them where it is, but only if they agree to break him out of jail, which they do only to find further complications involving Greenberg’s dubious, double-crossing father (Zero Mostel).

Based on a Donald E. Westlake novel this film has all the trappings of being a fun, breezy outing and for the most part it is. The actors are game and Redford gives a surprisingly strong performance and maybe one of the best of his career while the supporting cast fall into their roles perfectly especially Mostel who easily steals it from the rest despite having only limited screen time. Director Peter Yates nicely paces the material although the set-up could’ve been more extended as the film spends only a few minutes on the planning phase and then jumps jarringly right into the actual crime making me feel more scenes of the preparation were filmed and then excised for possible shorter runtime purposes.

Spoiler Alert!

The actual crime is where the film falls apart as it starts getting a little too creative for its own good by incorporating too many offbeat touches that it can’t logically get its characters out of without going overboard into the implausible. The first issue comes when Dortmunder and Kelp try to break into prison in order to break Greenberg out of it. To me it just seemed too easy and they routinely open up prison doors that should certainly sendoff loud alarms almost immediately, but strangely don’t. I also couldn’t believe that Dortmunder would ever break into a place he so dearly wanted to stay out of. One misstep and he’d be stuck there for the rest of his life, so why even take the chance?

Later we learn, after they manage to get Greenberg out, that he has hidden the diamond inside the police station, which involves them flying a helicopter onto the roof of the police building, cutting off the power and phones lines and then releasing smoke bombs in order to get the officers out, which they do only to find that someone else has already gotten to the diamond, which was hidden inside the grimy sewage pipes. Later they find that it was Greenberg’s father, but how could some old man have been able to get to it when it took these four men a lot of effort just to get into the building?

The biggest implausibility though and the one that ‘jumped-the-shark’ for me is when, in an attempt to retrieve the diamond which Greenberg’s father has hidden in his safety deposit box in the bank that only he can access, they have a hypnotist hypnotize one of the bank employees, so that all Dortmunder needs to do is say a magic word and the bank employee will open up the father’s box for him.

I’ve tried hypnotism in the past and I can assure you that there is no way that someone can put anyone else into a trance-like state like they do here. It just doesn’t work that way a person’s conscious state doesn’t shut off nor can they be ‘tricked’ to do something against their will or that they are not aware of. If it was so easy to manipulate people in this way then we’d have robberies all over the world committed like this, but we don’t.

It also brings out more questions than answers like how were they able to get this woman to help put this bank employee into a trance? Did they offer her a part of the cut in order to keep her quiet and how would they know that they could trust her to begin with?

End of Spoiler Alert!

I really wanted to like this movie and the production is slick with a nice jazz score by Quincy Jones and a thrilling look at New York’s skyline from a helicopter, but the numerous plot holes became too much to overlook and ultimately made the story impossible to believe at all.

hot rock 3

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: January 26, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Rated GP

Director: Peter Yates

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Dry Humor, Heist Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

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Legal Eagles (1986)

Posted on December 29, 2015 | 1 comment

legal eagles

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Searching for stolen paintings.

Successful district attorney Tom Logan (Robert Redford) suddenly finds himself in a big mess when defense lawyer Laura Kelly (Debra Winger) approaches him in regards to her quirky client Chelsea Deardon (Daryl Hannah). She feels that Chelsea is innocent of the charges against her and hopes to have them dropped before it goes to court. When Tom looks into the case he finds that there’s much more to it than initially assumed, which leads the three into danger, stolen paintings, murder and even a weird love triangle.

If you are expecting anything having to do with a legal drama then you’ll be highly disappointed as there is very little time spent in the actual courtroom. Instead you get what amounts to an ‘80s action flick with explosions, car chases and even shootouts as these two lawyers go through things that no other lawyer in the history of the universe has ever went through either before or after.

The main selling point, and the only thing that actually works, is the casting. Redford with his laid back style is terrific in this type of comedy and I enjoyed the way he tries to remain cool-under-pressure despite being exasperated with two very kooky females, who both have an interest in him, coming at him from both sides. Winger is fun too as a well-meaning young attorney who tries hard, but still seems a bit ‘rough-around-the-edges’. Hannah is also perfectly cast in a role that works well with her slightly flaky, free-spirited persona and she even has a scene where she performs a fire-laden performance art piece that she wrote herself.

The first hour has a nice balance between the interpersonal relationships of the three as well as an intriguing mystery, but the second half leans too much into the action and gets overblown. The supposedly ‘exciting’ finale only helped to get me bored and annoyed. It’s the chemistry of the three stars and the romantic entanglements that ensued between them that had me interested and are what made the plot unique. The film should’ve emphasized this area more and even played it up. Having things end up working out so conveniently between the three despite the fact that both women were for a time seemingly competing for Redford’s affections misses out on a lot of potential fireworks and amusingly comical scenarios.

Familiar faces pop up in minor roles including a young Christine Baranski as a fledgling member of Tom’s legal team as well as Terence Stamp in a role that ends up being so small and insignificant I was surprised he agreed to take it. The film also features Rod Stewart’s hit song ‘Love Touch’ that climbed to number 6 on the pop charts, but isn’t heard until the very end when it gets played over the closing credits.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: June 20, 1986

Runtime: 1Hour 56Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Ivan Reitman

Studio: Universal

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Comedy, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Mystery, Romance

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