Movie Review: The Brink's Job (1978)

Genre: Heist Dramedy  

Director: William Friedkin  

Starring: Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Warren Oates, Paul Sorvino, Gena Rowlands  

Running Time: 104 minutes  

Synopsis: In Boston of the late 1940s, life-long thief Tony Pino (Peter Falk) stumbles onto the headquarters of the Brink's armored car company, and finds it lightly guarded despite a reputation for being impregnable. He plots a heist to infiltrate the building and steal the safe contents. His co-conspirators include his dim brother-in-law Vinnie (Allen Garfield), fence Joe McGinnis (Peter Boyle), unhinged army veteran and self-proclaimed explosives expert Specs O'Keefe (Warren Oates), and daytime accountant Jazz Maffie (Paul Sorvino). The men are hardly competent, but the theft makes history.

What Works Well: Lovingly detailed glistening sets recreate mid-century Boston and breathe life into the true story of what was at the time the largest and most audacious robbery in the history of the United States. The sense of place complements a group of none-too-bright rogues and mavericks stumbling onto the theft of a lifetime, with an engaging Peter Falk as Tony Pino acting as the glue that binds the gang together.

What Does Not Work As Well: Despite the best efforts of a cast filled with sturdy character actors, the Walon Green script fails to build depth and settles for superficial representations. Director William Friedkin never gets the balance right between heist fundamentals, crime drama, and wry humour, and occasionally surrenders to unworthy slapstick. Already compromised by Falk's fading influence, the wayward third act is cluttered by the underdeveloped involvement of the FBI, and finally sunk by basic inattention to timeline clarity and important events. Gena Rowlands as Pino's wife Mary is sadly sidelined.

Key Quote:

Tony (to Mary): The building is asleep, and all that money is in there, and they're being held prisoner. And it's screaming at me through the walls. And it's yelling "Hey Tony, come in and grab me! Get me outta here!"



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Movie Review: The Gambler (1974)

Genre: Gambling Drama

Director: Karel Reisz

Starring: James Caan, Lauren Hutton, Paul Sorvino

Running Time: 111 minutes

Synopsis: In New York City, Axel Freed (James Caan) is a college professor of literature and in a relationship with girlfriend Billie (Lauren Hutton). He is also a compulsive gambler always looking for the thrill of the unlikely win, and ends a particularly bad night owing $44,000 to his bookie Hips (Paul Sorvino). Under pressure to pay-up, Axel's options include borrowing from his mother (Jacqueline Brooks), a doctor, or his wealthy but ailing grandfather (Morris Carnovsky). Even if he finds the cash, the temptation to risk it all on more gambling is strong.

What Works Well: Director Karel Reisz and writer James Toback create a sweaty mood of driven desperation, and James Caan invests in an addicted but self-aware character. Axel consciously gravitates towards the danger of high-risk betting, recognizing he needs the rush as nourishment. Figuring out how to repay his lenders before they break his bones is just another risk feeding his spirit. The film rides the emotional waves of winning and losing streaks, Axel oscillating between invincibility and misery, while the nonglamorous New York locations offer an equivalent contrast with the dazzle of a Las Vegas side trip.

What Does Not Work As Well: The final act loses both credibility and subtlety, featuring unrealistic betting on a local event then a non-gambling crossover into in-your-face psychological proclamations. 

Conclusion: A high quality exposition of low quality life decisions.



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Movie Review: GoodFellas (1990)

Based on the true story of New York mafia gangster Henry Hill, GoodFellas is a sprawling, entertaining epic that covers three decades in the lives of colourful criminals.  While GoodFellas lacks the gravitas of The Godfather, it makes up for it with irresistible personality.

It's 1955, and teenager Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) is growing up in Brooklyn, living in an apartment across the street from a taxi office that in reality is a front for mob boss Paulie (Paul Sorvino). Henry is excited by the prestige and wealth of the mobsters, and over the years he graduates from doing odd-jobs for Paulie's crew to participating in crimes, and grows into the role of a wise guy in Paulie's inner circle. Other criminals with emerging reputations rotating around Paulie include Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). Jimmy is smooth, calm, and viscous when needed. Tommy is loud, unhinged and volatile, capable of switching from funny to deadly in an instant.

Henry ultimately proves his value by helping to plan and flawlessly execute the theft of a large amount of money from an Air France office. He moves into the big time of flashy cars and slick clothes, gets married to Karen (Lorraine Bracco), and is quickly cheating on her with barely discreet mistresses.

While the life of crime seems to have few downsides, trouble is lurking. Tommy's temper is out of control, and in 1970 he kills a made man, usually considered untouchable, from the Gambino family. And when a shakedown in Florida goes wrong, Henry is sent to jail. Upon his release and with his lifestyle threatened, he becomes a full-fledged drug dealer, despite Paulie's warning not to. With drug money rolling in and now himself an addict, Henry is quickly back to the big time.

In 1978 Jimmy, Tommy, Henry and many other men from Paulie's crew pull-off a multi-million dollar robbery of a Lufthansa office, but the enormous amounts of money cause stress between the men, and they turn on each other. Jimmy starts a clean-up operation, eliminating most of the participants in the Lufthansa heist. Tommy is killed in a hit arranged by the Gambinos. And in 1980 anti-narcotics agents finally catch up with Henry's drug operations, forcing him to make a choice between certain death and full disclosure.

While The Godfather series focused on the upper echelons of mobster families, GoodFellas takes us to the street level, and to the lives of the wannabe men who do the dirty work while wearing expensive clothes. It's an engrossing movie, filled with rich characters, memorable scenes, comedy, drama and violence in perfect balance.

Despite being based on real people, the three main characters in GoodFellas are all larger than life. Relatively unknown at the time of filming, Ray Liotta captures the centre of the film with an affecting performance as Henry Hill, on a remarkable journey from wide-eyed hanger-on to a wild-eyed, drug-addicted desperate mobster. Robert De Niro is surprisingly and effectively controlled as the scheming Jimmy, who emerges as the most calculating member of Paulie's gang. And Joe Pesci gives a most memorably stunning performance as Tommy, a hypnotic package of dynamite that may explode at anyone, anytime and for any reason. It's impossible to ignore Pesci when he's on the screen, as in every scene he's either already in the centre of the action or about to make sure that he creates a maelstrom around him.

Scorsese directs with an emphasis on continuous kinetic energy, and his use of freeze-frames is terrific, but unfortunately limited to the earlier scenes. His screenplay, co-written with Nicolas Pileggi and based on Pileggi's book, keeps the action humming for 146 minutes of running time, while squeezing in as many F-bombs as possible.

Despite lives drenched in crime, GoodFellas succeeds in presenting Henry, Jimmy and Tommy as characters who would be thoroughly entertaining to invite for dinner. Whether anyone lives to finish the meal would be entirely up to Tommy.

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