I get what they were trying to do here - a throwback to those old 1930s movies about gentleman thieves, such as Raffles, the Lone Wolf, the Saint. The casting was ideal in 1973 - Ryan O'Neal as the thief, Jacqueline Bisset as his girl, Warren Oates as the investigator.
There are some good things about it. Bisset is beautiful and stylish, everything you'd want in this sort of movie; O'Neal very pretty too and ideally cast as the 1973 version of Cary Grant; Oates is strong and tenacious; and there's a decent support cast including Jill Clayburgh (lively and disastrously under-used), Ned Beatty and Austin Pendleton (very funny as a chess expert brought in to battle O'Neal's chess moves via the media).
Walter Hill wrote the script and I enjoyed some of what I assume to be his contributions (I could be wrong): the early banter between O'Neal and Bisset; the scene where Bisset and O'Neal are on a date and she challenges him to rob a house; some of the O'Neal-Oates exchanges; some reversals such as O'Neal trying to get away and being run into by a little old lady who apologises and insists on reporting it. This last bit reminded me of the scene in The Getaway where a money exchange is interrupted by a random thief... and now I think of it, the script is reminiscent of The Driver in some ways - the little old lady interruption results in a night time car chase; and the plot has a dogged crook after a super thief, and the super thief seems to know everything the dogged crook is doing.
But I feel the film doesn't work for the following reasons:
* It's not a very attractive film visually. I get why they set it in Houston - all that new oil money, it provides some novelty - but Houston isn't a pretty town, at least not in this film. There's a lot of roads, and car lots and skyscrapers. The clothes aren't that great, the houses not too spectacular. It needed to be shot in say Miami or the south of France or New York. Or at least have better costumes and design.
*O'Neal's character really is a bit of a prick. I don't mind thief heroes who steal off people who deserve to be robbed - evil corporations, banks, Russians, Nazis, mafia, etc. I guess the people he robs in Houston are rich and can afford it - but are they that bad? It couldn't have hurt to show them being fat rich Texans, or greedy thieves themselves. I know that'a s cliche but at least that's more effective emotionally than watching him just steal. This mattered especially towards the end when O'Neal is knocking out/fighting all these security guards - they're just poor blokes on minimum wage trying to do a job, and this spoilt idiot is rendering them unconscious. I felt for Oates, who was honest, worked hard and just wanted to catch the thief.
*The plot involves O'Neal being introduced to Texan high society, but we never see much of that - the "coming to dinner" of the title. Why not have a few scenes and characters that really illustrate it. It's kind of there but it's all a bit half hearted.
*After a strong start the film gets repetitive and monotonous. Bisset has this sexy, glamorous introduction - looking fantastic and bantering with O'Neal. Then after they hook up she just becomes his girlfriend, useful mainly for the purposes of exposition. I kept waiting for her to do something - betray him, be revealed to be a thief, die, get arrested, something. I guess she helps him escape at the end but that's it. Such a waste.
* Also wasted is Jill Clayburgh who plays O'Neal's ex. She turns up, Oates interrogates her, you think "oh she'll complicate things". But no. I think she's just in there to flesh out some background and underline that O'Neal is irresistible (she makes a move on him). Bisset gets a little jealous but that's it. She's not a rival, a threat, someone to drive the action... you could have cut her out of the whole film.
* I was confused by the ending. Oates busts O'Neal picking up a chess set - that should be evidence enough to convict O'Neal. Right? Then Oates lets O'Neal go because...? I wasn't sure.
It's not a very good movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment