And Schifrin’s score bops when it has no right to, it’s that exciting. By some terrible stroke of luck, when he and his cronies rob the New Mexico bank they depart not with the unassuming $15,000 or $20,000 they projected, but with more than three-quarters of a million dollars. Come and See. this is a great movie. I make it an effort to see Charley Varrick on a regular basis. Sign Up By dispelling any audience preconceptions in this way, his character is established very naturally and soon becomes a rich source of interest in a fascinating story that was based on John Reese's novel "The Looters". | A framed photo of John Vernon is by the bed of a pretty young woman (who Walter Matthau sleeps with in the dreaded SXSW position). Directed by Don Siegel, "Charley Varrick" is well written, well acted and very nicely paced. TMDb It's a resolutely low budget production, quite rough around the edges, and in Walter Matthau it has a leading man best known for his comedy roles. View / … But it is an odd movie. On Varrick's tail is a callous enforcer named Molly played by a very unassuming, very chilling Joe Don Baker, and John Vernon plays the banker who, on account of Varrick, seems to have deceived the mob. As Charley is walking out the clerk asks "May I ask what that's for?" "Dirty Harry" puts Westerner Eastwood in big city San Francisco. This would explain how Charley has a couple of sidekicks half his age and how he has a distasteful scene of going to bed with someone young enough to be his daughter . The charismatic Matthau plays it straight here, and plays almost his entire part by chewing gum and silently thinking about what to do next. The simple, down-to-earth little bank turns out to be a mob stopover en route from Vegas out of the country to be filtered. That is where their hit man and mob enforcer whom they call Molly (Joe Don Baker) comes in. I also didn't feel as though it meandered through its middle third. Show All… cropdusting isn't paying the bills, cops try to foil a holdup, bank robbers catch bullets, hookers turn tricks, the hitman methodically tracks down his target, the passport forger jacks up the price and then sells you out. Made by fans in Auckland, New Zealand. Your typical 70s career criminal/mob boss/money laundering rigamarole, done with an intentional laziness in order to focus most on the day to day of such a upstanding individual who’s done it all in a short time. The decision to cast Walter Matthau as the eponymous anti-hero of this entertaining heist movie proved to be highly inspired because not only did he turn in a great performance but also, because of his deportment and mannerisms etc., immediately signalled that Varrick is far from being a stereotypical small-time criminal. Soon the mob’s terrifyingly cool enforcer Joe Don Baker is on Varrick’s trail, which winds through seedy connections toward an unforgettable showdown in the desert. Everybody in the movie seems greasy or weaselly or both. Bill talks to writer and film historian Chris Poggiali about his many endeavors in film culture, from co-creating the Temple Of Schlock fanzine and founding the long-running blog of the same name, to contributing to various magazines and video releases, distributing BLACK SAMURAI and working on books with Grady Hendrix, Michael Gingold and Sam Sherman. And I'm sure that, like me, most viewers root for him to get away with it. Walter Matthau is aces in the title role, a crop duster who decides to pull off a bank heist with his wife Nadine (Jacqueline Scott) and hot headed younger partner Harman (Andrew Robinson). I am convinced that in the near future Charley Varrick will be resurrected in the form of a remake (not that I am looking toward that day). It seems a little off to call such a cold blooded story "fun", but that's exactly what Charley Varrick is. Small-time bank robber finds himself targeted by the cops and the mob. I got interested in this film when I discovered that it had an underground following with everyone from "The Pretenders" to several critics. Assembling a greater appreciation for the bit players, especially the Asian actors - I love how Siegel included that small scene where the Asian woman assumes the guise of a well-worn stereotype and then shrugs it off effortlessly when she realizes who she is dealing with. I’mimpressed by him. I have seen this movie over 20 times and it gets better every time I see it. He decides to supplement his income by robbing a small bank in a backwater New Mexican town. Varrick, afraid that his mentally-challenged colleague will give them away by going on a spending spree, hides the money. But he can also pull another trick, which is to suck most of his natural humor and charisma out of his bone marrow but remain intriguing, watchable, and even magnetic. Charley Varrick (Walter Matthau) is a crop-duster turned bank robber in the heartlands of New Mexico, who with an assembled crew consisting of his wife Nadine (his getaway driver) and Harman (played by Dirty Harry's Andy 'Scorpio Killer' Robinson) knock off a local bank in the town of Tres Cruces. I've been in that downtown bank where Boyle had his office. On the face of it, CHARLEY VARRICK really shouldn't work as well as it does. "Charley Varrick" is about a robber (Walter Matthau.) Expecting a small heist,they instead get away with hundreds of thousands of dollars in Mob loot. This is one of those movies that makes me miss Matthau. It's a neat little crime caper, a look at the cultural zeitgeist of the early 1970s and features Walter Matthau as one of the most ruthless bastards in cinematic history. Matthau's Varrick carries himself with the same distance be it dealing with sex or mourning or violent thugs after him. Yet, this is a story with a conclusion that leaves you stunned every time you see it and convinces you that this is a film that should be seen again and again (unlike some great movies that should be seen only once). Dude’s rock canon. It's almost cliche to complain about the number of explosions, but I feel compelled to mention them at…. Those were the days, huh?) "Charley Varrick" plays like a Richard Stark novel, a classic heist/getaway flick. Then again, I've learned not to trust anything I wrote back in 2013, or the Hell Year as it's become personally known. Guy's got that disheveled grumpy look to him, and he makes for a sly bad guy. This was an unexpected delight from start to finish. response. Zoom Up: Graduation Photo – 1983 – Yoshihiro Kawasaki. Matthau’s almost complete lack of sadness at his wife’s death. Citizen Kane (duh) Cleo 5 to 7. Charley must now come up with a plan to not only evade the police but the mob as well. Charley Varrick. score: 249 of 1000 (25%) required scores: 1, 83, 163, 260, 430 list stats leaders vote Vote print comments. And somehow his atitude rubs off on everyone else in the picture, all parts of the same machinery, except from Robinson's young gun who is too dumb to get it and Baker hitman who probably had never had a soul to get crushed in the first face. Crowdsourced from Twitter - great films you think the vast majority of the world have missed out on. | Children of Men. All in all a great recipe for a Classic movie. When the hitman tracks them down, he beats Varrick's colleague to death when he is unable to "persuade" him to reveal the money's location (which he doesn't know). 4 ) The Shootist (1976) Review Website Ranks: Rotten Tomatoes Critic: … I have to say that I appreciated the fact that, at times, this film did make those references because for the most part I found Charley Varrick…. 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