There's some shooting out of the said Tommy Gun and then a big car chase in where our would-be thieves driving to a forest, switch out into different Vehicles, change their own clothing and throw out all of the consequential evidence of the robbery.
There's some shooting out of the said Tommy Gun and then a big car chase in where our would-be thieves driving to a forest, switch out into different Vehicles, change their own clothing and throw out all of the consequential evidence of the robbery.
Well everything except for Kelly's machine gun. Which he breaks into separate components and gives pieces of to his gang so they can transfer it back to his headquarters.
It's really quite a stupid idea keeping bits of evidence from the crime scene especially when it's the murder weapon.
But Kelly is a bit of an idiot and he insists that he can get rid of this one gun he possesses.
Which to be fair it's a really nice machine gun at the time it would have only been 10 to 15 years hold a fairly modern weapon in the most dastardly time of Mafia criminality.
With all of that said above you'd think this be a more action-packed movie. Filled with double-crossing and lots of high action schemes as Kelly goes around of the machine gun shooting up Banks stealing getting into fights with the police and being the head honcho of a tough Rumble of gangsters.
But you'd be wrong. Throughout most of the movie it showing that Kelly is a dweeb a wimp a coward a backstabber, sociopath and overall just unfit to be the ruler of the gang.
The guy is paranoid about everything he's superstitious about coffins and anything associated with death. He turn on a person with the flip of a hat and he's only really kept in checked by his girlfriend played by Susan Gabot.
I almost wish the film with a focused on her instead. Susan's character is headstrong cocky confident constantly flirting with everybody her Mother isn't even more mouthy woman who constantly berates her boyfriend Kelly straight to his face. She's the one that makes a lot of the proper planning and keep her cool and a bad situation and she even admits to him later on that if it wasn't for her he'd still be drinking water down Brandy and some craptastic bar somewhere half scared out of his mind to do anything. And then tells them right after ward that she was going to let him die in one of their robbery attempts and just leave him for some other guy. She really is her own piece of work but at least he's a competent character and you have a reason to give a crap with what she's doing. Kelly's character on the other hand is just kind of a bumbling oaf he puts on a veneer of power but he's afraid of everything and he only gets his way because he can manipulate the situation and get other people pushed into an even worse spot.
Now despite all my bad-mouthing of Kelly I do want to make it clear that Charles Bronson is absolutely wonderful. He's putting on a really solid act and it's just fun to see him juggle Duo performance of intimidating in your face gangster and completely scared out of his wits coward.
The film starts off with bank heist. As the gang goes from One bank to another with little bits of success at the beginning and then a screw up in their final Endeavor as Kelly gets spooked out by a coffin.
Then after being berated by his girlfriend's mother he decides to step it up and engaging kidnapping.
Then the entire mood of the film changes as we settle down into a kidnapping scenario where we spend most of our time inside one or two little tiny sets.
It kind of works out better as now the characters have to concentrate on each other. It's still a little slow but I admit the film did start to win the over a bit.
I'm a little sad that everybody didn't get shot up in the end.
But at least it was a kind of reasonable explanation for it in this film. Kelly's girlfriend took his machine gun from him and decided she was going to shoot up all the cops. She was going to go out in a blaze of glory.
But then Kelly just punches her in the face and doesn't have the nerve to take on the police, so they bust down the door just arrest everyone.
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