cliche Criminals

...No safe can stop Frank Equipped with drills, torches and an array of sophisticated devices, he can break into any vault But he's just interested in diamonds and currency, no stocks and bonds, no jewelry, no art-nothing that could tie him to anything or anybody He is the last of the independents To make sure you get the picture, he boasts "I am self-emploved I am the boss of my own body ". The problem is that like any hardworking stiff, he dreams of retirement So when Leo (Robert Prosks), the local mob boss, offers financial and technical assistance m exchange tor being cut in on a $4-million diamond theft, Frank cannot resist temporarily sacrificing his independence for what he thinks will be the big lob enabling him to quit forever In tact, he is so taken with the notion that he assumes a host of obligations, including a wife, Jessie (Tuesday Weld), a black-market baby (since Jessie cannot have children), and a new house that the organization helps mortgage...

...Director Martin Ritt should have had something else in mind, however, especially since he and Fields worked...

...Eyewitnessis not half as confusing to read about as it is to watch, nor is it nearly as infuriating Tesich and Yates stretch the tired conventions of the murder mystery well beyond the tolerance of intelligent adults who have seen more than two movies in their lives And their racial caricatures are brazen The suave Jew scheming how to stab you in the back while smiling at your face, the inscrutable Orientals lurking about menacingly-are Tesich and Yates kidding9 They should have aimed for a romantic comedy instead of a romantic thriller...

...Tesich's dialogue is admittedly bright and snappy The ridiculous love affair between Daryll Deever (William Hurt), an Irish Vietnam veteran, and Tony Sokolow (Sigourney Weaver), a Jewish heiress working as a reporter for local TV while she decides what to do with her life, is leavened by exchanges with the kind of crackle that made mystery romances like The Big Sleep such fun in the past...

...Later, her incompetence as a hooker becomes even more obvious After brashly trying to stake out a corner in a tenderloin district within moments of arriving in a strange town-something that no self-respecting prostitue would attempt without some preliminary research--Amy is brutalized and robbed by the local pimp and strong-arm man...

...Some story, too The film meanders from one limply comic scene to the next, linked only by the recurring image of Amy sprawled on her back, legs spread wide-though not f or sex She is supine from toppling backward off a c ouch, tumbling from a train into a mud puddle—in short, taking one pratfall after another I suppose that Gary Devore, the screenwriter, could not think of any other way to picture proletarian existence except as a slapstick cartoon...

...Once the robbery is pulled off, it comes as a surprise to no one except Frank that the mob isn't about to let a man of his abilities retire Leo has one of Frank's associates slaughtered in front of his eyes to make the point, and threatens Jessie and the baby Frank decides to show the boss who's boss He curtly sends his wife and child away, blows up his bar and used car lot, and then, presumably with nothing to lose, breaks into Leo's house and engages in a bloody shootout that leaves the gangster and his gunmen dead and Frank walking off-sadder, wiser and still independent as the credits roll by...

...On Screen CLICHE CRIMINALS BY ROBERT ASAHINA THE WHORE WITH a heart of gold, the lovers who overcome class barriers to find true happiness, the elderly con man who pulls off a final big score, the thief-as-existential-hero-all have been taken out of the closet and shamelessly dusted off by Hollywood this spring...

...I suppose that Mann, in leadenly directing his own adaptation of Frank Hohimer's The Home Invaders, thought he was filming a paean to rugged individualism What he has actually done is make a movie as trite as it is questionable A knowledgeable thief who has spent his entire career outside the criminal establishment would be quite aware of the likely consequences of any compromise Moreover, a confirmed loner would not suddenly encumber himself with a house and family on the eve of a big heist Mann has mechanically supplied some sentimental clues to Frank's motivations Evidently he had a mentor all those long years in the pen, Okla (whille Nelson), whose deathbed words of wisdom about women inspired Frank to get married In addition, to remind him of his goals, Frank carries around in his wallet a collage of homes children, etc , that he assembled out of magazine pictures while in prison In a bit near the end of the film, he crumples this up, apparently realizing that his encounter with the mob has demonstrated the futility of his dream...

...Atlantic City, directed by Louis Malle from a script by playwright John Guare is an equally fatuous blend of crime melodrama and love story Lou (Burt Lancaster), a numbers runner and con artist grown old along with the decaying beach resort, comes upon new possibilities as the casinos and hotels move in after gambling is legalized One of his finds is Sally (Susan Saran-don), a would-be croupier working at a hotel clam bar whom Lou spies on at night across the airshaft separating their apartments in a decrepit boardwalk building slated for renovation Another is Sally's estranged husband, Dave (Robert Joy), an inept drug dealer who is wiped out by the mob for stealing some cocaine, but not before leaving the stash to the old man...

...very well together in Norma Rae, which was serious, if not totally successful Back Roads does have a few fleeting moments that reveal Ritt's mastery of the medium—a shot of a dilapidated bus traveling from nowhere to nowhere, and some scenes of a carnival that capture the way fits of desperate gaiety punctuate long stretches of tedium in a small town But most of the movie is simply silly...

...and Joseph (Michel Piccoh), an oily French import trying to give the local casino some class and Sally some French lessons Not one of them is any more credible than the two lovers, whose May-Decem her romance has all t he charm o t the pedophihc relationship in Malle's Pretty Baby...

...Take Frank (James Caan), for example, the title character in Thief Michael Mann's script assures us that Frank can do almost anything He survived close to a dozen years in the slammer by using a lead pipe on the heads of the toughest cons and guards, and now not only wears $800 suits but changes cars "like other men change clothes ' After getting out, you see, he established a thriving used-car business and a popular neighborhood bar, financed by his real work as the world's greatest burglar...

...She does not show any more entrepreneurial flair as a hustler Amy and Elmor eventually team up and leave Georgia for California, where she hopes to start a new life as a manicurist Because neither has any money, they have to travel the thoroughfares indicated by the title, walking and hitchhiking and living off their slender wits Elmor isn't supposed to be fazed in the least when Amy turns a trick for some carfare, yet she is shocked when he rolls a drunk Some hustler...

...Or has it Frank is still alive alter all and presumably has triumphed Maybe Mann wanted to celebrate, not mourn I rank as the last of the independents Or, and 1 shudder to think it, perhaps he just wanted to allow for a sequel...

...The whore is Amy Post (Sally Fields), who claims in Back Roads that she isn't one "A whore is a 16-year-old with a bad reputation," Amy announces "I am a hustler " Well, maybe, for she certainly doesn't know anything about street walking Our first glimpse of her comes when Elmor Pratt (Tommy Lee Jones) gets her into bed without paying beforehand The indignation, comic spat and chase scene that result from his then refusing to reward her for the services rendered probably constitute the filmmakers' idea of meeting cute...

...of the good old days as a hood in good standing are apparently more fiction than fact, nonetheless is courageous enough to defend her and to successfully overcome two very efficient hit men As he and Sally divide the proceeds of the drug sale, they are incredibly unworried about further trouble from the mob...

...Still, the melodrama outdoes the romance in preposterousness When the mob goes after Sally in search of the missing cocaine, Lou, whose memories...

...Unfortunately, the improbable liaison is the least dubious part of the film The busy plot has to do with a murder committed in the building where Daryll works nights as a janitor As a ploy to get to know Tony, an erotic fantasy figure brought close because she is covering the crime, Daryll pretends to have seen more than he actually did Somehow, Daryll's best friend, Aldo (James Woods), is also implicated in the murder, as are various mysterious Orientals, shady militant Jews, two cops with problems of their own, a trained attack dog, and a herd of horses that come to the rescue in one of the most hackneyed climaxes I've ever seen Daryll, a city boy with no apparent relationship to the animal kingdom besides his dog, turns out to be such an accomplished equestrian that he can use the horses to make his escape from the police stables where he has been lured by Joseph (Christopher Plummer), Tony's fianc...

...Lou finally scores big with the drugs and with Sally, who at first is ignorant of his involvement with Dave It is typical of the script's holes that Sally stays with Lou after discovering that he was working with her husband and is thus implicated in the murder There is also the predictable handful of oddball characters Sally's sister, Chrissie(Holhs McLaren), a mantra-humming masseuse and Dave's lover after he left Sally, Grace (Kate Reid), Lou's mistress, in more than one sense of the word...

...And although the bittersweet ending has Lou and Sally agreeing that their affair cannot endure, the fadeout leaves Lou in Grace's arms, with enough cocaine left for a nice nest egg Let no one say that senior citizens are portrayed unflatteringly in the movies Lou is no less heroic and far-fetched than any film hero half his age...

...Eyewitnessis similarly disappointing in the light of the talent involved The writer/director team of Steve Tesich and Peter Yates, so effective in Breaking Away, stumbles badly here...