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Oldbeliever
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The Outfit (1973)
Watch this if you get a chance
It is a while since I have seen this film and it might be a while till I can see it again as it is not available in the UK in any format. Nevertheless I cannot recommend it too highly to any crime film buff who enjoys the work of Don Seigel or films such as the original "Getaway" or "killing of a Chinese Bookie". If you can get it on VHS where you live or it is shown on television late at night then try and see it.
This film is from a golden era of the crime thriller. This was a never to be repeated halcyon era. Crime films were no longer saddled with worthy "crime does not pay" messages and directors were given free rein on plot. Censors were no longer cutting out sex and violence from films. But on the other hand directors had not yet broken the sex and violence volume control knob then and saturated films in them till more definitely became less ( See Kill Bill 1 & 2 ). Realism and grittiness ruled the roost. There was none of the irony and knowing attitude along with the allusions and references and homages to other films which burden contemporary thriller films.
Of course one director in particular is responsible for this trend. Tarantino has made some great films but I feel his legacy seems to have permanently hobbled the crime film genre ever since. Any good crime films made since "Reservoir Dogs" are made despite his influence not because of it.
The Outfit is so fresh in comparison with the mannerised offerings that have dominated the crime genre for the last ten years. When you watch this film you willingly suspend belief. It is a film about a not very nice person doing not very nice things to some other people who are not very nice. This does not sound very involving but the protagonist played by Robert Duval pulls you into the film with his thirst for revenge and you identify with him although he is neither a hero nor a anti-hero but just a guy trying to get back at the Outfit.
There is no glamour in this film and it is not slick and the direction is flat but these are all good things. It is not saddled with "auteurism". Perhaps this is simplistic but auteurism seems to be a process where by some French critics looked at American films, made a theory from what they had seen and then it got sold back to the Americans. In the process they unfortunately changed American directors from craftsmen into artists and the change was not all for the good.
This is a film made by a craftsman. It is not trying to scream out the director's identity with every shot. Good directors like Hitchcock have their own style in a film such that most or all of their films belong to them. Nowadays every director seems to want to be Hitchcock. Unfortunately not every director can be a Hitchcock, so the film going public have to suffer all these films where the medium suffocates the message as the director expends all his or her energies stamping their identity on the film and meanwhile plot and character development and atmosphere go to the wall.
This is not a film like that. It is bare and unadorned and low key and almost documentary in style. But these things are what makes it good. The people and the situations and the locations look real. The characters exist in a milieu of grasping little guys trying to chisel each other on the next deal. Everything is about money or personal esteem or revenge in a twilight world of losers who do not realise they are losers because they are too busy ripping off the other guy to notice. Even if this world never existed this film makes it real but it feels like a glimpse into a forgotten era.
It features a compelling central performance from Robert Duval who has complete conviction in his role. Robert Duval was never going to be a top grossing actor most likely for the silly reason he is bald but he offers total believability in this part as he does in most of his performances. He is assisted by a panoply of great character actors such as the greatly underrated Robert Ryan.
The plot is from a book by Donald Westlake who is probably second only to the great Jim Thompson as a chronicler of American pond life. It moves along at a brisk pace to an inevitable denouement but it carries you along with it. It does not digress to consider aspects of popular culture or introduce preposterous sub plots or an irrelevant back story to make the film more complex it just gets on with it.
See it if you can.
Confidence (2003)
Los Angeles and two smoking barrels
Everyone probably thought they had seen the last of the caper movies when Sinatra et al. made the original Oceans 11 forty years ago. Not so, as this film inter alia is abundant proof of its re-emergence. The Brit Gangster revival cycle initiated by "Lock, Stock and two smoking barrels" seems to have cross germinated with the "Oceans Eleven" remake and spawned a genetically modified caper for the 21st. century of which this film is but one of many.
Normally my John Bull heart would swell with pride as Pinewood influences Hollywood but not so in this case. Guy Ritchie's shtick does not travel and this film just does not quite work on a number of levels.
I have described this film as a caper but I think the director has tried to make something more than a simple caper movie. However there are problems with this approach. First of all it seems he cannot decide what tone it should take. Is it ironic or parodic or a comic book adventure, a pastiche or a spoof? No one can tell. The director probably feels that the film dances nimbly between all these categories artfully evading any pigeon hole. However as a humble viewer I just felt it was a mishmash that lacked the courage of its convictions to set out its stall in any particular category. It did not convince as an example of irony or a comic book adventure or an exercise in cool.
I think someone defined a caper movie as one in which the people making the film had more fun making it than the audience had watching it In that case the film falls straight in the middle of the caper bracket. the film is too slick and too knowing. These are common afflictions in contemporary films which you would probably overlook if the film was good enough in other respects. Although this film has redeeming features they do not compensate for these shortcomings.
It has some great character actors in the cast who give good performances Giametti, Guzman, Garcia in fact everyone except the two main actors portraying the central couple Edward Burns and Rachel Weisz. The character played by Burns is supposed to be the hub around which the whole film revolves but I am afraid in this case the axle is broken. Burns cannot carry the film and is constantly outshone by the actors that surround him. I get the impression that he is supposed to be the old-fashioned straight (in the old sense) lead whose looks offset all the ugly character actors. However he radiates zero menace or malevolence or evil or anything that might make him believable in the role. "Things to do in Denver when you're dead" survived without a good looking bland central character so why does this film need one. Maybe the guy is "box office" as I believe they say, but I have never heard of him so how exactly did he add to the film.
And so on to the vexed subject of Rachel Weisz's performance. It amazes me that Americans tolerate my fellow nationals doing lame non-specific non-regional faltering American accents. She came across as a Helena Bonham Carter for the 2000s. If this had been done by Merchant Ivory then she might have fitted right in but it wasn't and she didn't.
I don't want to spoil the plot for anyone but a couple of the set ups for con tricks were just poor. I will mention one episode which is not intrinsic to the plot where a rich customer in a jewellery shop gets reeled in. It is a popular misconception in films that rich people are stupid dupes who are easily parted from their money. This is lazy plotting. Rich people are usually not rich by accident unless they are lottery winners of course. They are rich because they know how to get money and then how to hold on to it. Is it really that easy to part them from their money? A lot of con artists doing time might suggest otherwise.
My final issue with the film is the first ten minutes which are as wooden as any episode of "Murder she wrote". Is this a stylistic device or are the first ten minutes of the film just really badly made. The jury is out.