The Italian Job (1969)
Dry TV humor, stretched out to two hours
Michael Caine is adorable, of course, and the movie has a silly caper flair to it, a mix of Goldfinger (with all that baggage, but Sean Connery) and Lavender Hill Mob (which has its laughs, and Alec Guinness), To Catch a Thief (also not the best film, but Cary Grant) and Charade (which has its funny, campy moments and at least a good old romance, with both Cary and Audrey). What I mean to say is, The Italian Job isn't very original, and Michael Caine isn't enough to save it, though he has saved a few movies, for sure. This one drags so often, is sexist so often (even more than a Bond film), and depends on wry little moments for its style and laughs so fully, I wanted to fast forward to the end.
I know this isn't a horrible movie, but when it asks me to be patient I quail. Why should I be? So we can watch a bunch of cads pull off a dubious heist (dubious because it's so unlikely, and yet of course, nothing is supposed to really be likely here) and see their little English ironies at work? And those cute little cars slide around like Matchbox toys?
Whatever. If you like it you like it. Which is to say, there is a British sensibility here which rubs me wrong. Monty Python I get, the Prisoner I get, Peter Sellers I get (to pick some 1960s British icons). The Beatles I get. It guess there are people, bless their impoverished little souls, who hate American film noir, so there you have it.
The cliff-hanger at the end is a perfect summation. There they are, in this comic/ridiculous suspension literally on the edge of a Swiss cliff, and the gold is about to slide into the gorge, and do we really care? Nope. And if we don't care, why are we watching? For the fun of it, the laughs, the jolly good quips that appear, spaced out between sections of filler? Not for me. It's just not comic enough or dramatic enough or surprising enough. It's just not enough, period.
Dry TV humor, stretched out to two hours
Michael Caine is adorable, of course, and the movie has a silly caper flair to it, a mix of Goldfinger (with all that baggage, but Sean Connery) and Lavender Hill Mob (which has its laughs, and Alec Guinness), To Catch a Thief (also not the best film, but Cary Grant) and Charade (which has its funny, campy moments and at least a good old romance, with both Cary and Audrey). What I mean to say is, The Italian Job isn't very original, and Michael Caine isn't enough to save it, though he has saved a few movies, for sure. This one drags so often, is sexist so often (even more than a Bond film), and depends on wry little moments for its style and laughs so fully, I wanted to fast forward to the end.
I know this isn't a horrible movie, but when it asks me to be patient I quail. Why should I be? So we can watch a bunch of cads pull off a dubious heist (dubious because it's so unlikely, and yet of course, nothing is supposed to really be likely here) and see their little English ironies at work? And those cute little cars slide around like Matchbox toys?
Whatever. If you like it you like it. Which is to say, there is a British sensibility here which rubs me wrong. Monty Python I get, the Prisoner I get, Peter Sellers I get (to pick some 1960s British icons). The Beatles I get. It guess there are people, bless their impoverished little souls, who hate American film noir, so there you have it.
The cliff-hanger at the end is a perfect summation. There they are, in this comic/ridiculous suspension literally on the edge of a Swiss cliff, and the gold is about to slide into the gorge, and do we really care? Nope. And if we don't care, why are we watching? For the fun of it, the laughs, the jolly good quips that appear, spaced out between sections of filler? Not for me. It's just not comic enough or dramatic enough or surprising enough. It's just not enough, period.