Did you ever want to see a grizzled Clint Eastwood and a happy go lucky, living for nothing Jeff Bridges team up together in a film?
Because if you do want that very specific thing then this just might be the film for you.
Clint Eastwood is this former bank robber who's decided to become a preacher for a small County Church.
He's approached by a strange man in the middle of a sermon who tries to kill him point blank*.
Eastwood is able to escape when he runs into Jeff Bridges who is driving around recklessly in a car he just stole.
Or maybe to be more pacific Jeff Bridges runs into him. As he nearly runs the guy over with the car he just stole.
He ends up hitting the other guy who was chasing Clint Eastwood begin with. Then Eastwood jumps barely into the car and they speed off.
The two decide to exchange pleasantries before Eastwood's character has to fix his arm after it gets slightly dislocated.
For some reason Jeff Bridges isn't that bothered that a man was trying to kill this guy and decides to hang around with him for lack of anything better to do.
The two of them commit little tiny crimes to steal a car or acquire a small amount of money to continue on their way. They're being pursued by these two other guys. (George Kennedy and Gregory Lewis.)
Also former bank robbers who used to team up with Clint Eastwood's character in order to rob some local small city bank. George Kennedy's character really wants to kill Eastwood due to some botched operation in where they lost a bunch of money from their last caper.
But than he's able to figure out that the money wasn't gone but misplaced in a Schoolhouse purposely hidden away, just in case the heat was too hot.
None of them could find the schoolhouse so they decided just to hang around with each other.
That is after these two men nearly killed Eastwood and Jeff Bridges characters.
Honestly I'm not entirely sure what anybody's deal is here. The whole thing feels a bit aimless and the only reason they end up hanging around with each other is because Jeff Bridges character has the brilliant idea of Lee robbing the place they had tried to take money from so many years back.
And this changes the entire movie.
It went from being an 'On The Run' movie with two guys trying to escape to other guys to being a heist movie involving all four of the guys robbing this elaborate bank system.
It wouldn't be so bad except that the film doesn't really know what to do with its end of its second act structure and it just has everyone working Oddball jobs setting up for the heist they're about to do. It's entertaining enough but they probably could have cut 20 to 30 minutes out of this film and lost nothing in the process.
All of this leads to a bunch of scenarios in where everybody has to plan out the robbery perfectly in tune with each other so they don't set off these Banks security systems too early.
We also get an on-scene of Jeff Bridges in a dress pretending to be a sexy lady to lure in one of the guards so that he can turn off the silent alarm system. It's a little bit on the tasteless side.
But at the very least played up as silly because of the situation not silly because of the spectacle.
For the most part the movie is fairly enjoyable. Clint Eastwood plays the same character that he portrays in 80% of everything he ever does.
George Kennedy is this really fun but kind of impulsive jackass and Jeff Bridges character is a really annoying young delinquent.
Honestly I don't think his character would have worked if it was played by anybody else. I don't know why but Jeff Bridges is really good at playing kind of likable self-centred jerk.
It's kind of strange that the film decides to completely change it's direction about 40 minutes in. Before the heist scenario pops up it's just two guys running around the countryside or getting involved with other weird people and kind of living life day today. I honestly wish the whole film was like that. But the heist plot isn't bad. It just feels like it could have been better.
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