A fusion of the American and British gangster film - expat director Joe Losey has a high old time with this tale of hardened crim Stanley Baker who gets out of prison, where he is top dog, and sets about promptly going back to his old ways, organising a stick up of a race trek (shades of The Killing!), and winds up back there.
Baker is in his element here as a hard man, who thinks he's on top of it all, but winds up being outwitted by women, prison guards and his fellow crims. There's an interesting jazz soundtrack (Cleo Laine sings the title song), Aussies will love seeing a huge bald Aussie prisoner in gaol, an unflinching look at prison life, some effective riot sequences, funky cinematography.
Like a lot of Losey movies the female characters aren't that great - Baker is tormented by his over acting, drunken ex and sleeps with a gangster groupie. Also the plot feels repetitive - get out of gaol, rob something, wind up back in gaol, escape from gaol. But it's good, tough entertainment with fine work from Baker and the male support cast (including Patrick Magee as a sadistic warden).
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