The Anderson Tapes

Along the same lines as (but not quite as good as) "The Thomas Crown Affair" and "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three", this quirky heist drama manages to hold the attention and entertain despite some slow points and the unavoidable datedness of its trappings. Connery (revealing his natural pate after having donned toupees for his role as James Bond and other films) is a recently released convict who is barely out the door before he's planning his next caper. First stop is ex-girlfriend Cannon's luxury apartment where she is all too willing to give him everything she's got, both physical and material, even at the risk of losing her sugar daddy/john (Shull.) He decides to clean out the whole building of it's valuables with the assistance of various crime characters. He calls upon fellow ex-cons Walken (in his screen debut) and Gottlieb along with feminine antique dealer Balsam (in a outrageous, uncharacteristic performance!) and a couple of others. After careful preparation (and the aide of gangster King, in a showy part), the men go about stripping the building clean with varied resistance from it's motley band of tenants (several of whom were noted TV performers at the time and/or afterwards.) From the opening of the film, Connery is taped by all sorts of surveillance cameras and is revealed to be in the state of being recorded by any and all varieties of agencies and individuals for one reason or another. This gives the film an eerie "Big Brother" feel at times, even if the concept isn't always completely followed through upon. Many of these moments are punctuated by the innovative, but occasionally irritating musical sounds of composer Quincy Jones. This is a film that has more lurking beneath the surface than one expects from a heist thriller. It's filled with unexpected moments and irony and invites closer inspection of it's themes. However, it's also a rather downbeat affair and will likely not suit everyone's tastes. The biggest surprise is Balsam. A reliably normal character actor in multitudinous films, here he is a flaming, lascivious queen with a riotous wig (borrowed from the "Diamonds Are Forever" set?) and heavily mascara-ed eyelashes. He provides the bulk of the film's humor through his committed, yet outre performance. It takes some getting used to, but in the end, he has truly created a memorable persona. Cannon exists mainly to slough around in flimsy outfits and bed down with Connery. Meeker shows up near the end to give a bizarre, yet strangely entertaining performance as a police chief (though his approach doesn't always gel with the material.) "Saturday Night Live" fans will be stunned to find Morris in a straight part as a SWAT member. It's interesting to see where technology was in 1971 and to see the attitudes and preconceptions of what people thought gays were (Balsam is not the only one in the movie.) The film does make effective use of flashback and nonlinear storytelling. It's just lacking that one little spark to make it a classic in the same league as several others from this genre.

Recently-paroled master thief Sean Connery plots one last job: robbing the residents of an entire New York apartment house on a holiday weekend! Engaging heist flick, adapted from Lawrence Sanders' novel by Frank Pierson and directed by Sidney Lumet, takes a dark turn towards the end--much like Pierson and Lumet's later "Dog Day Afternoon" in 1975. The title-named tapes are a bluff (and, when revealed as such, more perplexing than amusing) and the asides with Connery and "kept woman" Dyan Cannon don't add up to much, though she's still nice to have around in the first-half. Pierson's character profiles and dialogue are expressive and sharp, and there are wonderful supporting performances by Martin Balsam, Alan King, and Christopher Walken in his film debut. Connery is terrific as well, but some viewers may not like the downbeat third act. The joshing tone gives out, replaced with action and consequences, yet it's all quite marvelous from a filmmaker's standpoint. *** from ****

Sean Connery plays a jail bird who's let out and decides to pull another heist with the help of a team of experienced crooks; little does he know the cops are monitoring everything.

What's so unique about this film by Sidney Lumet, in superb form as director, is that heist films rarely mount the tension by showing us the cops' side -- here it's like a ticking time bomb, we're just waiting for Connery and his crew to be arrested and we know that they don't know that the cops know (err...) and the result is pretty tense.

No fault found in the acting: Connery and a very young Christopher Walken (in his film debut) are great, particularly Walken who shows extensive range very early on. After seeing this I was reminded of his recent role in the "Stepford Wives" remake and had to wonder why he's resorting to such trash, because he's just as talented (almost, anyway) as De Niro and Pacino and the difference is he wasted a lot of this during the '80s and '90s by taking on small bits in horrible films. I mean, in 2003 he starred in KANGAROO JACK. C'mon!

Overall THE ANDERSON TAPES is a tense and unique crime thriller that, although very "70s-ish" is entertaining, if a bit outdated in terms of technology. I'm sure it will be remade some day, there's a lot of potential, however I doubt it'll ever come close to the original.

4/5

There's a reasonably interesting heist movie in here, and some understated commentary on our surveillance society (particularly relevant as I write this in the summer of 2013.) Unfortunately, they are mismatched parts that never quite come together into one film.

Sean Connery was clearly trying to escape the penumbra of James Bond here, playing a much coarser character and working without toupee. He's actually pretty good, with the exception of the dreadful accent he attempts. It's a bizarre Brooklyn/Scottish hybrid, and come to think of it, sort of fitting for this movie: two things that don't really mesh but are jammed together anyway.

Martin Balsam and an extremely young Christopher Walken are the standouts among the supporting cast. Balsam seems to have somehow channeled Harvey Fierstein from the future, almost but never quite going over the top. Walken is mesmerizing in a very small role, showing even at his young age the physical grace and edgy unpredictability that would come to define him.

I must make special mention of the dreadful score. It's distracting and awful, almost certainly the lowlight of Quincy Jones's career.

Ultimately, and unfortunately, this film just doesn't quite work. It can't seem to decide what it wants to be. It's kind of funny, kind of suspenseful, kind of socially critical, kind of dramatic, but in the end not really anything very specific. I can usually decipher what a movie has attempted, even if it fails, but in this case I just don't know. It's a confusing, strange melange of recognizable parts that never form a consistent whole.

The Anderson Tapes was made in 1971 and feels like it was made in 1971. Unlike, say, Zardoz (another underrated Connery '70's classic), this doesn't mean that the cast all resemble slightly cleaner hippies. Instead, it is the level of technological innovation that is stuck two years before I was born. That said, this is a good movie. The performances are all fine, and while some situations are laughable, not all are. I will say this against it, though; Christopher Walken, as "The Kid", is supposedly a safecracking and lockpicking expert. What he actually does is blow stuff up. Some expert! My cousin Timmy likes to put firecrackers in tin cans and blow them up. Does that make him a safecracking and demolition expert?

Quincy Jones' score, which often pops up in all of the wrong places, is inadvertently hilarious (and also quite funky!).