The Italian Job (1969) - Braindead boilerplate heist action-comedy regurgitated by swinging London

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A woman's backside used as a canvas for writing a map, seated on the floor next to an expensively dressed co-star Michael Caine holding a tommy-gun, makes up this eye-catching poster for Peter Collinson's The Italian Job

When a criminal bigshot dies in an accidental explosion, our recently released hero inherits a scheme to steal 4 mil. $ in gold from a money transport in Turin, Italy. The job will require a lot of manpower and four Mini Coopers.

 

The Italian Job is written by Troy Kennedy Martin (The Sweeney (1975-78)) and directed by Peter Collinson (The Penthouse (1967)).

It is a colorful picture in which Michael Caine (Jaws: The Revenge (1987)) plays the thief that no one can resist. Perhaps as a consequence, no other character really make an impression. The film is a sort of trendy, triumphant dance for the swinging London of the 1960s. But it is totally hollow, dumb, - idiotic, in fact. With a terrible ending to boot.

 

Related post:

 

The Italian Job (2003) - Gray impresses with slick heist remake (remake)

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 3 mil. $

Box office: 9.4 mil. $

=  Box office success (returned 3.13 times its cost)

[The Italian Job premiered 5 June (London) and runs 99 minutes. Noël Coward (Paris When It Sizzles (1964)) was paid 25k £ for his performance in the film. Shooting took place from June 1968 - ? in Ireland, including in Dublin, in England, including in London, and in Italy. The film was the 14th highest-grossing of the year in the UK and reportedly not big in North America. It did collect a sizable 9.4 mil. $ gross and was nominated for a Golden Globe. The film was remade with the same title in 2003, and in Bollywood in 2012 with the title Players. Collinson returned with You Can't Win 'Em All (1970). Caine returned in Battle of Britain (1969); Coward retired from acting after the film and continued as a writer until his death by a heart attack in 1973. The Italian Job is fresh at 81 % with a 7.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of The Italian Job? 

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) or, Manhattan Struggles and Wonders

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Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey and Dianne Wiest look very fashionable and lovely on this poster for Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters, which calls to mind a beauty magazine cover

Hannah is the center of her extended family and the coordinator for her parents and two sisters: One of them is a recovered alcoholic, who ventures on an affair with Hannah's husband; the other is a flighty creative with poor self-confidence.

 

Hannah and Her Sisters is written and directed by New-Yorker master filmmaker Woody Allen (What's Up, Tiger Lilly? (1966)), whose 15th feature it is.

Allen hits the bull's eye with this moving romance dramedy, served with intertitles that give the entire ordered story a vivid, intelligent distance. The film has strong characters and amazing performances: Mia Farrow (Guns at Batasi (1964)) towers with assuredness and irony in what is likely a role that she later looked back upon with some anguish, (as her partner at the time, Allen used their personal life in the script and would later leave her for Farrow's Korean-adopted daughter.) Also fantastic in Hannah and Her Sisters are Barbara Hershey (Frogs for Snakes (1998)), Michael Caine (The Quiet American (2002)), Dianne Wiest (Rabbit Hole (2010)); Max von Sydow (Judge Dredd (1995)) is grand - and Allen himself, of course.

How does the film transcend many of Allen's other great films? In a classical way, you may say, through a simple case of raised stakes: There's really something at stake in the several strong scenes here. Allen shows great curiosity, interest in and knowledge of life, religion and first and foremost love, - the capricious and the flighty kind in particular, - while he himself is divinely funny yet again.

 

Related posts:
 
Woody Allen: 2016 in films - according to Film Excess

Café Society (2016) - The greatest living American filmmaker hands us another splendid gem

Irrational Man (2015) - Allen's pleasant morality tale divertisement

2014 in films - according to Film Excess

Magic in the Moonlight (2014) - Allen's irresistible French Riviera romance

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Blue Jasmine (2013) - Allen presenets Blanchett, a woman under the influence

Fading Gigolo (2013) - Turturro's pleasant turn as a high-end NY prostitute  (as actor)

To Rome with Love (2012) - Woody Allen's slightest film to date  

2011 in films - according to Film Excess

Midnight in Paris (2011) - Allen's zany (and a little depressing) crowd-pleaser  

Cassandra's Dream (2007) - Allen's well-laid but inconsequentiel English cul-de-sac  

Match Point (2005) - Allen takes London with pensive thriller hit 

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date  
Anything Else (2003) - Perfect contemporary relationship comedy 

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) - Allen's hypnotic, noirish shenanigans 
Celebrity (1998) or, Stars in New York
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) - Sin and guilt up for laughs and rumination in unspectacular Allen work 
Broadyway Danny Rose (1984) or, Keep Your Heart   

Top 10: Best comedies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Annie Hall (1977) or, My Relationship with Alvie Singer   

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972) - Allen's curious sex comedy is a riot
Bananas (1971) - Woody Allen's South American misadventure is still a barrel of laughs   
Casino Royale (1967) - The packed spy spoof frontrunner, a film very much of its time (as actor)   

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 6.4 mil. $

Box office: 40 mil. $ (North America alone)

= Uncertain, but at least a huge hit (returned 6.25 times its cost domestically alone) and more likely a mega-hit (projected return of at least 8.59 times its cost)

[Hannah and Her Sisters premiered 25 January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 106 minutes. Inspirations for the film include Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander (1982) and Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers (1960) as well as Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina (1878). Farrow criticized the script to Allen, calling it "self-indulgent and dissolute" and felt that it "was wordy but it said nothing". Shooting took place from October 1984 - ? in Italy, New York and California, including in Los Angeles. Many of Hannah's scenes were shot in Farrow's actual New York apartment. Farrow later elaborated on her and her mother's reaction to Allen's script; he "had taken the ordinary stuff of our lives and lifted it into art. We were honored and outraged." The film opened #10 to a 1.2 mil. $ first weekend in 54 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #5, behind new releases Pretty in Pink and House and holdover hits Down and Out in Beverly Hills and The Color Purple, and in 761 theaters (different weekends), grossing 35.3 mil. $ on its original release in North America, which was boosted with a re-release the following year by impressive 4.6 mil. $. Regrettably the foreign numbers are not made public. A very conservative world gross of 55 mil. $ (the real number may well be 65 mil. $ or beyond) would result in a return ratio of at least 8.59 and elevate the film's status to that of a mega-hit. It was nominated for 7 Oscars, winning 3: For Best Supporting Actor (Caine), Supporting Actress (Wiest) and Original Screenplay. It lost Best Art Direction/Set Decoration to A Room with a View, Director to Oliver Stone for Platoon, Editing to Platoon, which also took Best Picture. It also won 2/8 BAFTA nominations, was nominated for a César award, won 1/2 David di Donatello awards, 1/5 Golden Globe nominations, 3 National Board of Review awards and many other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/ 4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Allen returned with Radio Days (1987). Farrow returned in Radio Days; Hershey in Hoosiers (1986); and Wiest in Radio Days. Hannah and Her Sisters is certified fresh at 91 % with an 8.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Hannah and Her Sisters?

Going in Style (2017) - Flip the bird to banks with game veteran stars

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Three beloved veteran stars walking away with poorly secured loot makes up this bright poster for Zach Braff's Going in Style

When a retired bank customer witnesses a successful heist during a time in which he is forced out of his home, because his pension has been canceled, he gets a smart idea...

 

Going in Style is written by Theodore Melfi (Winding Roads (1999)) and directed by great New Jerseyite filmmaker Zach Braff (Garden State (2004)). It is a remake of Martin Brest's same-titled 1979 heist comedy hit starring George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg.

It is Braff's best work yet as a director by far, and perhaps the year's most welcome, funny and heart-warming film about a jolly good time. SPOILER It is good also because it doesn't splash despondently together in a fix about the world's regrettable constitution today but instead shows us that people are generally good and helpful, although there are greedy bastards in banks and elsewhere that are keen to defraud their next man. The sympathetic analysis of the modern world here gives rise to three adorable veteran stars giving these miscreants a solid knock in the head:

Michael Caine (California Suite (1978)) has his best part in many years and is downright fabulous. Morgan Freeman (Dreamcatcher (2003)) and Alan Arkin (Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)) are also both delightful; and so is Ann-Margret (Carnal Knowledge (1971)), the actress playing the stewardess, Matt Dillon (Deuces Wild (2002)) and John Ortiz (Take the Lead (2006)) as the helpful latino criminal. Christopher Lloyd (Clubhouse (2004-05)) is a bit caricatured as an Alzheimers patient, and Joey King (Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)) as Caine's granddaughter is unnatural and not credibly written, but Going in Style is wonderful and unpretentious all the same.

Related post:

Zach Braff: Garden State (2004) - Braff's hugely overrated deadweight debut (writer/director/co-star)

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 25 mil. $

Box office: 84.9 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 3.39 times its cost)

[Going in Style premiered 1 April (Beaune Film Festival, France) and runs 96 minutes. Shooting took place in New York in August 2015 - ?. The film opened #4, behind holdover hits The Boss Baby and Beauty and the Beast and fellow new release Smurfs: The Lost Village, to an 11.9 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 3 weekends in the top 5 (#5-#5-#4) and grossed 45 mil. $ (53 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Germany with 4.2 mil. $ (4.9 %) and the UK with 3.9 mil. $ (4.6 %). Braff has returned as director on two TV-series and with a short. Caine returned in Dear Dictator (2017); Freeman in Madam Secretary (2015-17) and theatrically in Just Getting Started (2017); and Arkin in Get Shorty (2017, TV-series), with a voice performance in Dumbo (2019), The Kominsky Method (2018-19) and physically and theatrically in Spenser Confidential (2020). Going in Style is rotten at 47 % with a 5.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Going in Style?

Miss Congeniality (2000) - Caine, Bullock and Shatner shine in low-brow romp

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Star Sandra Bullock looks radiant on this poster for Donald Petrie's Miss Congeniality

FBI's agent 'Dirty Harriet' Grace Hart is tasked with infiltrating the Miss America pageant in order to avert an attack from the mysterious 'citizen' killer.

Miss Congeniality is written by Marc Lawrence (Noelle (2019)), Katie Ford (Little House on the Prairie (2005, miniseries)) and Cary Lucas (Pride & Joy (1995, TV-series)) and directed by Donald Petrie (Mystic Pizza (1988).
The high-concept idea that runs Miss Congeniality doesn't have much in terms of unpredictability or plausibility to its credit, and especially the FBI environment it conjures up seems grotesquely improbable. The sincerity of the film's morale and the inevitable kisses are also very slight.
But if you can accept Miss Congeniality with the appropriate low-brow expectations, it offers something besides these deficiencies:
Sandra Bullock (Forces of Nature (1999)) is as endearing as ever, (although some of her comedy misses the mark); Benjamin Bratt (Snitch (2013)) is handsome and fine as her romantic interest; William Shatner (Barbary Coast (1975-76)) is a bowl of laughs as the pageant show's host, a ham part that's not far from Shatner's own celebrity persona. And then there's also Michael Caine (The Wrong Box (1966)), who is phenomenal and hilarious; his scenes are generally the film's best. Miss Congeniality esteems itself as gay-friendly, satirical, decent popcorn-munching fun fare.

Watch a short trailer for the film here

Cost: 45 mil. $
Box office: 212.7 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 4.72 times its cost)
[Miss Congeniality premiered 14 December (Hollywood) and runs 110 minutes. Shooting took place from May - July 2000 in Texas, including San Antonio and Austin, and in New York City. The film opened #5, behind fellow new release Cast Away, holdover hits What Women Want and How the Grinch Stole Christmas and fellow new release The Family Man, to a 10 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked at #3 and spent a total of 6 consecutive weekends in the top 5, grossing 106.8 mil. $ (50.2 % of the total gross). The film's Box Office Mojo international sheet is regrettably incomplete, but its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets appear to have been Germany with 17 mil. $ (8 %) and the UK with 14.1 mil. $ (6.6 %). The film was nominated for 2 Golden Globes, among a few other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 2/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this one. Bullock returned as star in sequel Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous (2005) with John Pasquin directing. Petrie returned with How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)). Bullock returned first in Murder by Numbers (2002). Miss Congeniality is rotten at 42 % with a 5.12/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Miss Congeniality?

Get Carter (1971) - Dreary, bleak and overrated revenge flick

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A slick and simple poster for Mike Hodges' Get Carter

Jack Carter is a gangster, whose brother has been killed. Now he searches out people with knowledge about the murder, until he finds the culprit. SPOILER He shoots the killer on a beach and is then sniped himself.

Get Carter is written and directed by debuting Mike Hodges (Flash Gordon (1980)), based on the novel Jack's Return Home (1970) by Ted Lewis (All the Way Home and All the Night Through (1965)).
England has rarely been drawn as a more hideous and dismal place than it is here, and regrettably the script doesn't lead one to care for a single character in the film either. When a film decides on a tone as cold as concrete at the dead of winter, I think it is pivotal that it makes up for it with some color or charm in its characters. With both of these negatives, the result with Get Carter is a dreary British crime flick, in which the only thing to interrupt the short-bitten, dull dialog and Michael Caine's (Last Orders (2001)) tight-lipped, side parted, horrid-looking anti-hero protagonist is a squeaking wind. Get Carter is a dreadful bore and wildly overrated.

Caine at the time of the film's release sends a message in a video here

Cost: 750k $ or £ (different accounts)
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain
[Get Carter premiered 3 February (USA) and runs 112 minutes. Hodges was paid 7k £ to write and direct the film. Established star Caine's salary is not known. Shooting took place in England, including London, from July - September 1970. The film was reportedly a theatrical hit in Great Britain, where it was the 6th most popular at the 1971 box office. In North America it was shown on a double bill at drive-ins. Distributor MGM favored promoting another adaptation of Lewis' novel; blaxploitation movie Hit Man (1972). Get Carter was released in a long row of markets but its theatrical gross numbers are regrettably unreported online. It was nominated for a BAFTA. Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to two notches higher than this one. The film was remade under the same title in 2000 with star Sylvester Stallone, a film that was a massive failure critically and commercially. Hodges returned with The Frighteners (1972, TV-series)) and theatrically with Pulp (1972), again with Caine. Caine returned first in Kidnapped (1971). Get Carter is fresh at 84 % with a 7.14/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Get Carter?

Harry Brown (2009) or, Old Man Vengeance

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Michael Caine is a determined-looking gentleman on the poster for Daniel Barber's Harry Brown

Harry is an aging ex-Marine, who lives in a crummy neighborhood and only has one friend, whom he plays chess with. When his friend gets murdered, Harry takes up killing off the young hoods responsible. Along with some other criminals.

Michael Caine (Shadow Run (1998)) does well in the semi-comical titular part as the avenging, walking-impaired vigilante here.
Harry Brown takes itself very seriously but is really one-dimensional and reactionary. It proposes that by shooting around 10 people, old man Brown makes his neighborhood safe again. The evil drug-pushing villains seem like mostly fantastic clichés.
England is (still) ugly and bleak in Harry Brown. It is written by Gary Young (Spivs (2004)) and directed by feature debuting Daniel Barber (The Keeping Ground (2014)).

Related post:

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Michael Caine gives an interview to Empire Magazine about the film here

Cost: 7.3 mil. $
Box office: 10.3 mil. $
= Big flop
[Harry Brown premiered 12 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 103 minutes. Shooting took place in November 2008 in Essex, London and in the Elstree Studios in the UK. The film opened #27 in 19 theaters to a 173k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked in 67 theaters but never achieved a higher position and grossed 1.8 mil. $ (17.5 % of the total gross). The film's biggest market was its native UK with 6.6 mil. $ (64 %). North America was the 2nd biggest market, and the 3rd biggest was Australia with 1.4 mil. $ (13.6 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to one notch better than this review. Harry Brown is fresh at 64 % with a 6/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Harry Brown?

The Eagle Has Landed (1976) - Sturges' enjoyable, last man's adventure

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One of the deliciously colored, neat posters for John Sturges' The Eagle Has Landed

QUICK REVIEW:

In 1943 in small town Norfolk, England, German colonel Michael Caine (The Swarm (1978)) and joyous adventurer Donald Sutherland (Virus (1999)) land with a group of Polish paratroopers on a secret mission: To kidnap British PM Churchill. But things get complicated ...

The Eagle Has Landed is an adaptation of Jack Higgins' (The Iron Tiger (1966)) same-titled 1975 bestseller by Tom Mankiewicz (Diamonds Are Forever (1971)) and directed by John Sturges (Ice Station Zebra (1968)). It is a very exciting film of a fictitious high-risk kidnapping attempt by the Germans in WWII. Eagle is elementary, male-eschewed suspense of the type that Sturges was often successful with, a real boyish adventure yarn and a well-made one.
Lalo Schifrin (The Mean Season (1985)) has made a fine, militaristic score, and the film has fine performances, apart from the stars already mentioned also from Treat Williams (Chicago Fire (2013-15))  as a very American soldier, Donald Pleasence (Phenomena (1985)) as Nazi Himmler and Robert Duvall (The Apostle (1997)), also as a Nazi, and actually seeming like one.

Related review:

John Sturges: Chino/Valdez, Il Mezzosangue/Valdez the Half BreedThe Valdez Horses (1973) - Bronson is his own man only in Sturges' good spaghetti western

Robert Duvall is credible as a Nazi in John Sturges' The Eagle Has Landed

In lieu of a trailer for the film, not currently on Youtube, listen here to Schifrin's theme for the film

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty (but likely a big hit)
[The Eagle Has Landed was released December 25 (Sweden and Finland) and runs 130 minutes. The film was shot on location in England and Finland from May - August 1976. Caine has later related how Sturges confided to him that he only accepted the job, which became his last film, so he could get money to go fishing after. He has also written that Sturges never appeared for any post production duties on Eagle. The film was released in North America in a slightly shorter (124 min.) version, but the film is mostly seen in its longer version on DVD and Blu-ray today. It was well-received by public and press alike and is said to have made a tidy profit, although without numbers, I can't say for sure how much. 13,917 IMDb users have given The Eagle Has Landed a 6.9 average rating.]

What do you think of The Eagle Has Landed?

Children of Men (2006) - Cuarón's multi-faceted, great sci-fi offering

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+ Best Sci-fi Movie of the Year

One hooking poster for Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men

QUICK REVIEW:

2027: The world development has stagnated. No new babies have been born for 18 years, when a refugee in England turns up pregnant. Surrounded by desperate fanaticism, the job of protecting her is both difficult and potentially lethal.

I was hesitant of this existential sci-fi drama thriller for a while due to the polemical core of the dystopia it presents. But once the story really kicks in, I got very invested in the film, which is compelling and has the feeling of importance. It is an adaptation of a 1992 novel of the same name by English female writer P.D. James (A Taste for Death (1986)) by great Mexican co-writer/director Alfonso Cuarón (Y Tu Mamá También (2001)), Timothy J. Sexton (Cesar Chavez (2014)), David Arata (Spy Game (2001)) and Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Iron Man (2008)), who were Oscar-nominated for their script.
Cuarón and his Oscar-nominated, great, regular cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's (Y Tu Mamá También) photographic concept of many long, vivacious single shots is dynamic and very impressive. It also fuels the film with a highly convincing realism.
Children of Men is a thought-provoking and remarkable movie with lots of strong images. Hard-to-forget and in sci-fi terms a big step better than Cuarón's later, much more acclaimed and commercially successful space opera Gravity (2013).

Related reviews:

The day after ... The Oscars 2014 
Alfonso Cuarón: 2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Gravity (2013) or, Survival in Space: The Ride

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

 

Watch the original trailer here

Cost: 76 mil. $
Box office: 69.9 mil. $
= Big flop
[While the dark yet hope-infused UK/US co-production failed to set the ticket booths on fire, it was recognized by critics and sci-fi fans as an extraordinary film and even one of the decade's best: According to Metacritic's survey, the film is placed as the 11th best of the 2000's as ranked on critics' lists. It was also Oscar-nominated for its editing (3 nominations in all), and won a bunch of other awards. It made 35.5 mil. $ (50 % of the total gross) in the States.]

What do you think of Children of Men?
How would you like to see Cuarón tackle another big, smart, edgy sci-fi movie?