52 Pick-Up (1986)
7/10
Elmore Leonard, RIP
29 August 2013
Elmore Leonard died recently, and so I decided to watch this movie based on one of his novels. John Frankenheimer directed Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret in "52 Pick-Up", about an industrialist whose affair leads to severe consequences. It seems that the movie is simultaneously testing your willingness to watch a lot of nasty stuff and making you feel as if you want to watch ever more of it. Gross as a lot of it is, Frankenheimer's slick direction keeps even the most unpleasant scene relevant to the story. Mired as the characters are in a world of sleaze, there's sort of no nice way for the story to progress.

"52 Pick-Up" continues the string of serious movies in which Ann-Margret started appearing in the '70s ("Carnal Knowledge", "Tommy", "Magic"). No doubt she realized that it was time to move away from her sex kitten image. A really different role for her was the 2006 suspense thriller "Memory". Above all, "52 Pick-Up" is a movie that I recommend. It's definitely not going to be for everyone, but I liked it.
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