@ProcolKrautSprout73 It's a pretty wild one, there's a lot of extreme close-up panning around that's kinda disorienting, but the performances are crazy and the plot's all bonkers, with a lot of the finale delivered in the fashion of a 60's Batman episode. I kinda love it, hope you have fun with it.
As for me, today I watched
The Silent Partner (1978), where a cagey bank teller clashes with a nefarious mall Santa, in a gentle (until it isn't) example of "Canuxploitation". You know, butts, boobs, explicit violence, but set in Toronto! Originally directed by Daryl Duke, creative differences saw him walk not long into production, and the film's writer, Curtis Hansen, stepped in to finish the movie. Hansen must have liked the experience, as he went on to write and direct multiple movies, including the fantastic
L.A. Confidential in the 90's, launching Russel Crowe's Hollywood career, and Eminem's 8 Mile years later. Does The Silent Partner feel like either of those later films? Well, not so much, but none of those had Elliot Gould and Christopher Plummer!
I can't recall a single movie growing up with Gould, until his role as the financier in
Ocean's 11 (2001), and that was my loss, because this guy was one of the best leading men of the 70's. He's great here, believable in the role of a small branch bank teller in a Toronto mall, but he's just amoral enough for the darker turns he takes. To clarify, this isn't a Die Hard scenario or a heist per se, instead an observant Gould spots a robbery about to happen, and twists it to his advantage. He's a little smug, and just smart enough to believe he'll get away without consequence.
Enter: Mall Santa Christopher Plummer.
If you know Plummer from movies like 1965's
The Sound of Music (he knows *exactly* How To Solve A Problem Like Maria), this one might play a little shocking. He is an absolute bastard here, I'd swear he beats a woman or makes a death threat in every scene. He's not a refined gentleman thief, or a good man forced to break bad; no, this guy? Ya'll, he just isn't a nice boy. After the robber gets robbed, Plummer starts a cat and mouse game with Gould that's zero Eros, all Thanatos. These guys hate each other, and it's gonna get worse before it gets better.
There's somehow multiple romantic subplots, one of them in particular feels like a whole other movie. (My best guess, a vestigial limb from the novel it's adapted from,
Think of a Number by Dutch author Anders Bodelsen.) The main love interest is compelling early on, with an intriguing Susannah York playing a little hard-to-get with Gould initially. It fizzles though, replaced with a more outlandish relationship with Céline Lomez, a French-Canadian singer who's a decent femme fatale but her role was clearly disposable, Baby's First Dangerous Woman on the writer's part. Also, a very young John Candy is here in a bit part, to keep things extra Canadian.
After a suspenseful opening, the movie eases back on the tension to it's detriment, and never really recaptures the feeling it started with. There *is* one instance later on that lands this picture in the exploitation category, a violent surprise that I won't spoil here. Another pass on the script, possibly to include more interactions between our two lead characters, would have done a lot of good in my opinion. That being said, I do lightly recommend
The Silent Partner to anyone who likes either of it's stars, tense crime thrillers on the more intellectual side (there isn't really any action to speak of), or just fans of gun-toting mall Santa's. Or Canadians, maybe? I dunno, y'all might watch this every Christmas already.
Picture unrelated, I don't need a reason.
