Best movie of this year hands down!

A different way of telling a story

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The first must-see film of the year.

I remember when this movie was filmed back in 78. yeah its dating myself. The movie was filmed at MCI ( Massachusetts Correctional Facility) Concord, Concord Mass. My father while actually working there was an extra. I had a chance to meet Mr.Falk and a few others as a kid ( I was ten). We had free tickets to the opening. I thought it was an awesome movie about bungling thieves. Most folks expected a serious thief/heist movie. Although based on an actual event. I found the movie comical. Although it didn't have Mini coopers jumping through a European city. It did serve its purpose as a good funny movie. A good buy as a bargain.

After the dismal box office and critical reception of SORCERER (1977), William Friedkin went for a change of pace with this light-hearted piece which, however, proved that his previous misstep with was no fluke: in fact, his career never really picked up after that costly bit of self-indulgence (even so, I’ve only just acquired the director’s fair update of his own THE FRENCH CONNECTION [1971], namely TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. [1985])! Anyway, this concerns – in a somewhat uneasy comedic vein – the famous January 1950 robbery from the Boston branch of the titular depository of payrolls destined to various key firms; incidentally, the same events had previously been depicted in the 1976 TV-movie BRINKS: THE GREAT ROBBERY. Its coup is in the meticulous period reconstruction (which earned production designer Dean Tavoularis, already responsible for BONNIE AND CLYDE [1967] and “The Godfather” films among others, an Oscar nod) – Friedkin himself had earlier demonstrated his prowess in this area with another comedy about an equally notorious incident i.e THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY’S (1968).Interestingly, too, the cast of daring crooks here comprises several reliable character actors of the era – Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Paul Sorvino and Warren Oates; 1940s Hollywood veteran Sheldon Leonard turns up towards the end as J. Edgar Hoover(!), but Gena Rowlands is wasted in the role of Falk’s wife. The comedy revolves around Falk and Garfield’s bumbling duo – the former is the mastermind and the other his often resentful relative/underling. After a number of ‘jobs’ go wrong (with Falk even doing a 6-year stretch in jail) or the ‘funds’ don’t last (one amusing sequence has them following a payroll van around and lifting a handful of money bags with every stop it makes – since the officer left to ostensibly guard them is apparently in continuous slumber!), they set their mind on robbing the Brink’s warehouse.After studying the place from the outside (such as time of arrival and departure of the various employees, and their toilet habits!), Falk manages to get inside the building to get an idea of how it’s set-up; with the place left unguarded during the night, he’s able to break in with relative ease to look for possible alarm systems and determine the model of the safe – the former is an ancient device, but the latter is up-to-date and unassailable. Oates, a war veteran, proposes to dent its surface with a bazooka fired from the roof of the opposite building(!) – however, saner heads prevail and they organize a good old-fashioned stick-up (complete with the gang putting on grotesque masks). Eventually, the sum they make off with is over $1.5 million – which, at the inflation rate of the day, was considered the biggest haul in U.S. history…thus bringing the F.B.I. in on the case.I’m not familiar with the facts of the real case but, here, the denouement is rather unexciting as Oates is brought to justice for another (minor) theft and, since he has a very sick sister and can’t possibly make the whole jail-term, he spills the beans on The Brink’s Job! Still, the gang apparently had the last laugh as, in spite of Hoover’s promises, a very small percentage of the money was retrieved over the years (as per the postscript) – and, following the lapse of their individual sentences, one assumes each picked up where they had left off… Ultimately, the film is O.K. (though curiously undistinguished among the spate of heist pictures made during this cynical era) – and especially disappointing given the intriguing subject matter and the welter of talent involved (including a script by THE WILD BUNCH [1969]’s Walon Green).

When you look at this now and hear all the language in here, it's amazing this was rated "PG," but that's the 1970s rating system for you. Peter Falk spews out the Lord's name in vain six times in the first ten minutes alone in this movie! Yet, few people consider that offensive, and certainly not the scumbags who make movies nor the people who "rate" them.The cast is a clue to how profane this film can be: Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands and Paul Sorvino aren't exactly actors you wouldn't find in "The Sound Of Music."I like heist movies, and a lot of films by director William Friedkin, but this script doesn't deliver and it just has way too much of the "Sleazy '70s" feel to it, visually and audibly. For those who loved Falk in TV's "Columbo" it must come as a shock to hear him use as much profanity as he did in films. This is far from the only case.

Compared to the hyped up, over violent fare that passes for crime movies, this movie is no contender. But it's a warm, funny, well paced caper flick about some North Boston Italians who stumbled on to the fact that the great Brink's was a paper tiger.