How do you make a poster for this film and not put Eduardo Ciannelli on it somewhere. He's one of the key figures in the entire film and his face has more personality than the other three put together.
The film starts in Central Park with two little lovebirds walking down and discussing their future. In a few hours they'll be married and they've got $160 to make it happen. But it seems loudly proclaiming your finances in the middle of Central Park at the tune of midnight is an incredibly stupid thing to do. As two hoodlums emerge from the Shadows and Surround our little love induced pair. They don't even shout, they don't even bicker. The Thugs just stare the two down and take the money straight out of the Man's Pocket. A police officer walks by and the two kids pay him no mind. They don't use any body language or try to suggest that they need help. They just let the police officer walked by and one of the hoodlums punches the little love sick boy in the face before wandering off.
The two kids are in a dour mood as their left penniless and unable to marry. The man Tommy (played by Richard Bond) has the ''brilliant'' idea of the following those two men. So that he can break in stick them up as to take back his money.
Now I don't know about any of you but if Eduardo Ciannelli sticks me up in the middle of a park and takes $160 away from me, I think I'd just let it slide. Maybe I could try to go to the police (but it seems like a fruitless effort). The last thing I would do is try to take my money by force back from him.
Would you try to find a man who look like this?
The gang's plans are interrupted when the two kids from earlier barge into their hang out and hold them up by gunpoint. They try to take their money back but are overpowered by the thugs. One of them says they should just get rid of them, dump them in a river somewhere. Another suggest that they should call the police on them as these kids were breaking and entering, stealing and threatening them with a Lethal Weapon.
but Morris has a different plan. He's going to use these two kids in their jewelry heist as the squeaky clean family that comes in to inspect rings and other items of interests as the thugs march in to steal them.
It's here that I really have to smack my head with how these kids react. They're not told what they're supposed to do yet and they're taken away with Morris up to his private house where he gives them new clothing and a place to stay for the night.
They're just so happy and quaint about the whole thing. I swear they're the most naïve characters I've seen in the film in quite some time. And only a few months ago I watch a ''Lum and Abner'' film.
The Heist itself is quite simple.
The kids going to the jewelry store to distract the clerk and make sure he brings out trays of jewelry for the kids to inspect. While that's happening to of the other thugs are going to stand outside and start a bra so they can distract the crowd away from the shop. Then a different group of thugs will drive up to the shop and steal the Rings and other jewelry right as the kids are exiting.
The heist goes off relatively well. Everybody performs their functions and gets away with the jewels. But Eduardo being the nut that he is shot one of the clerks and left him for dead. Now the police investigation which was supposed to be a minor jewelry theft has turned into a murder investigation and put the heat on everybody.
This infuriates his boss and scares the living daylights out of the kids. It's made even more confusing when you discover that Morris and his girlfriend we're going to run away with their share of the money and leave the life of crime behind. But that clearly can't work as she's having an affair with Eduardo to begin with.
Eduardo pulls a gun on Morris claiming that he's going to be the new boss and is going to take over and run his own racket. Luckily for Morris he's able to remove the gun and shoot Eduardo. Unfortunately he's witnessed shooting Eduardo by their former mistress. She's distraught and wants to see more is killed by the gang if nothing else.
they give him a ''trial'' and decide that he's innocent. After discovering that Eduardo was stealing money from a speciality fund the gang was supposed to send to a former members Mother after he was killed.
The mistress phones the police on Morris and his gang. The police only end up capturing the two dumb kids who were still hanging around the place eating dinner. one of the gang members goes to shoot the mistress and after wards is shot by the police. Now the police are left with multiple dead bodies, an attempt of murder of a jewelry store clerk and a connection to Morris who supposed to be one of the higher members of society.
the police are able to intimidate the kids into admitting that Morris hired them. And they go to take Maurice into custody but there's a bit of a problem. The evidence is strong that Morris is connected to the crime but not so strong that they can send him away to death row. However they tell him that if he isn't the one to confess of the crime then one of the two kids may go to death row has there an accomplice to the murder.
Morris reluctantly gives in and confesses but only after guaranteeing from the cops at the children will be let go and won't be convicted of any of the crimes.
It's a surprisingly decent movie, the acting is good and the action scenes are fun and the plot keeps changing from one story to another as they go from Heist to trial to intimidation.
My only problem with the film is the kids didn't get persecuted at the end. Now it's true that they didn't deserve death row as their involvement in the crime was miniscule. Really they should have just paid a fine or had jail time for maybe a year or two. It's the way the film frames them, they're perfectly innocent when in reality they're not.
Yes they were victims of a mugging but that still didn't give them the excuse to go and try to steal it back and then they willingly joined the Gang after the fact even though they could have gotten their initial $160 from Morris at the beginning of the stick up. But they didn't do that they went on with the crime regardless. Even though they knew it could land them in hot water.
Comments
Post a Comment