What a waste of my time!!!

A Disappointing Continuation

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Scripted by Wendell Mayes, based on the novel by Donald E. Westlake, "Bank Shot" tells a farcical story with some style. George C. Scott stars, playing the same character that Robert Redford played in the film version of "The Hot Rock", albeit with a different name. Walter Upjohn Ballantyne is a career criminal who breaks out of jail in order to participate in a most unusual bank robbery. He and his cohorts won't just attempt to steal its money, they'll make off with the bank itself! In order to see what I mean, you'll just have to watch this one.The movie isn't exactly perfect. For one thing, it might have been nice to have some genuine tension. It also tends to have frenetic sequences of actors shouting over each other and rendering their dialogue unintelligible. However, the fact that it is so blatantly comedic helps to make up, somewhat, for any holes there are in the script.Guided by actor & director Gower Champion ("Show Boat", "My Six Loves"), "Bank Shot" does have incredible comic energy, and is paced extremely well, wrapping up in a tidy 84 minutes. Its main value is the chemistry between an eclectic ensemble: a very amusing Scott, lovely Joanna Cassidy ("Blade Runner") as the jet setter bankrolling the heist, Sorrell "Boss Hogg" Booke as Ballantynes' shady lawyer, Bob Balaban ("Altered States") as the lawyers' shady nephew, Don Calfa ("The Return of the Living Dead") as the getaway driver, Bibi Osterwald ("As Good as it Gets") as the drivers' mom, and Frank McRae ("48 Hrs.") as the hot tempered safecracker. Look, also, for Liam Dunn ("Blazing Saddles") as a painter and Jack Riley ('The Bob Newhart Show') as an FBI agent. Clifton James ("Live and Let Die") is Ballantynes' nemesis, a prison warden who's actually a fairly amiable character.Bright widescreen photography and a peppy John Morris music score help to make this an agreeable, if not outstanding, comic crime caper. It never does get very unpleasant, which may further enhance its appeal for some viewers.Seven out of 10.

Although I think George C. Scott is much better at drama than at comedy, he controls his normal intensity and does well with Bank Shot. Scott plays a master criminal who's on temporary hiatus in prison when his disbarred lawyer Sorrell Booke visits him with an idea for a heisting a bank.Scott escapes with relative ease the penal institution run by Clifton James where he's incarcerated. Which gives James an obsession to catch him that he leaves the job and supervises the manhunt. But that's like the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote.Booke's only half right. He wants to rob a bank where a bank is temporarily housed in a mobile home. But Scott doesn't like his original plan. Let's heist the bank itself.Some pretty funny gags are in Bank Shot and the crew Booke gives Scott would be closer to The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. Funniest is his nephew Bob Balaban former FBI employee who apparently developed an admiration for the criminal lifestyle while employed there. A gambit you could never use while J. Edgar Hoover was running the show.Best bit is the faux railroad impending crash at a crossing where James and security guards are forced to flee for their lives after the temporary bank has been heisted.Scott also is of the opinion that women and his kind of work don't mix. With reluctance he has Joanne Cassidy who assisted with his escape as part of his team. The saltpeter in his prison diet have made him somewhat resistant to her beauty although Cassidy does her best to see it her way.Scott and the cast do a wonderful job. James is really the funny one here. Scott plays it absolutely straight and let's the rest of the cast get the laughs. It works out well in Bank Shot.

Recap: Karp is planning a heist. And for that he needs a true criminal mastermind, Walter Upjohn Ballentine. Problem is, Ballentine is behind bars at Steiger's Institute. And Bulldog Steiger never lets anyone escape, especially not Bellentine. However, Ballentine breaks out and heads out to LA to plan this heist. And what a plan it is... he is not about to just rob a bank. He is about to steal a bank! Comments: A very interesting idea. But the end result is just average. Why? My personal opinion is that most of the characters just pulls it down. Written as a bunch of amateurs to bring about some comic effect, I just found them disturbing. It was really Ballentine that knew what he was doing, the rest of them was mostly just dumb. I found them annoying.Well, still a good heist, and a good heist is always appreciated. So the story saves the movie. Not much more to say, really.5/10

Donald Westlake's Dortmunder are a terrific series of caper books about a career crook with bad luck. "Bank Shot" may very well be the best of the bunch, well the funniest anyway. But the movie fails on many levels.First off there's the casting, George C. Scott wasn't a horrible choice, if he had a good script he would have worked fine, Sorrell Booke wasn't the best choice, though i love to see him in something other than "The Dukes of Hazzard," Don Calfa is okay as the driver from the books, but Frank McRae was great as Hermman X.If you want to see a pretty good Dortmunder movie, watch "The Hot Rock" with Robert Redford or "Why Me?" with Christopher Lambert. Watch out of curiosity, at least its closer to the books than "What's the Worst that Could Happen?"