Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Touches You

Such a frustrating disappointment

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Trrrific porno stuff in this 1987 movie. A party to die for; whatever happened to those good times, reminiscent of Studio 54 in NYC in the 70's? Women were shown either as helpless or as sex toys. None of the 2017 Wonderwomen fighting men in cartoons.Not much suspense, but snappy dialoque, if you like "pussy" talk.Schneider must have taken a lot of money to take this part. All through this movie, he worries more about his money and his wife's election than his wife getting killed...who predictably gets kidnapped, drugged with a needle, and raped by the sleazy villain. (We know this because the villain removes his shirt while Ann Margret and the villain sit on a motel bed, just before the scene gets cut....bummer). Bodies get shot all around, but Schneider is afraid to go to the cops? No cop can figure out these dead bodies ?Ann Margaret is shown swimming in the pool in a one-piece swimsuit, but no shot of her outside the pool. Bummer. On the other hand, John Travolta's wife is shown with her boobs hanging out as her shirt is pulled off (no bra, folks). That scene alone is worth the price of a ticket. John Travolta married Kelly Preston in 1991...so it is not likely you'll see Kelly's boobs anytime soon again

The acting, dialogue, and casting was about perfect for this material. The big Hollywood studios apparently wouldn't accept this script so Elmore Leonard had to go to Cannon (a.k.a., that company made all those horrible films in the Eighties). It has the feel of a low budget film, with a lot of rising stars, falling stars, people bumping into the camera by accident, and a director long past his prime, but it holds up pretty well. There's not one stereotypical L.A. landmark or establishing shot, the film is better than to try and look generic. Clarence Williams is a believably scary murderer, and the other villains equally repulsive and hateable in their own unique ways. If any character is underwritten, it is the protagonist and his wife, who just seem boringly bland and familiar, but that is sort of inevitable in these types of movies where everything hinges our needing to identify with the victim.The film is entertaining as any other genre piece of the era, by far one of the better crime dramas of the Eighties, and easily the best of Cannon's direct-to-video cheapos. I'd have liked it even better if it had stuck to its strong suit and went all in with its dark humor (as the film was flirting with the entire run-time but never committed to). The ending was kind of predictable, maybe other films have over-used the idea since but it doesn't date well. Seemed like a throwaway climax.

Elmore Leonard died recently, and so I decided to watch this movie based on one of his novels. John Frankenheimer directed Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret in "52 Pick-Up", about an industrialist whose affair leads to severe consequences. It seems that the movie is simultaneously testing your willingness to watch a lot of nasty stuff and making you feel as if you want to watch ever more of it. Gross as a lot of it is, Frankenheimer's slick direction keeps even the most unpleasant scene relevant to the story. Mired as the characters are in a world of sleaze, there's sort of no nice way for the story to progress."52 Pick-Up" continues the string of serious movies in which Ann-Margret started appearing in the '70s ("Carnal Knowledge", "Tommy", "Magic"). No doubt she realized that it was time to move away from her sex kitten image. A really different role for her was the 2006 suspense thriller "Memory". Above all, "52 Pick-Up" is a movie that I recommend. It's definitely not going to be for everyone, but I liked it.

Life's going not to badly for Harry Mitchell, he's an ex-air force major (plus nifty little pension I imagine), who's raking in the cash for a patent he's developed (fusing titanium and steel via explosive process, creating super metal fit for NASA), and his wife of twenty-odd years has kept herself in pretty good nick. He's got a nice little pad in LA. I like to see visions of the 80s consumer dream, and you get a good slice here, what with the restored silver Jag (a series 1 E-type roadster) for him, and the gorgeous antique dolls house for her (as well as I'm sure other trinkets and boys toys). There's always got to be more though hasn't there? So Harry let's himself get caught up in some romantic shenanigans (you're only as old as the woman you're feeling). As in many films noir, one mistake, in an otherwise blotch-less life, leads to a downwards arc for Harry.Three blackmailers leech onto him. These are where the value are for me, great character actors playing very believable roles. Bobby Shy (played by Clarence Williams III) is a black ex-con who is capable of performing incredible psychopathic acts in order to avoid jail and punish double-crossers. He's reminiscent of Pluto, the vicious black ex-con psychopath from Carl Franklin's well-regarded neo-noir "One False Move" (1992). There's a similar character motivation I believe. Both men have had enough of the man, and well pretty much everyone, in extremis. Robert Trebor plays Leo Franks, a fat lily-livered pansy who runs a nudie parlour where gents can photograph nude models at $25 for half an hour, and $50 for a whole hour (did anyone else guffaw at the lack of discount?). He's in over his head, and it's great to watch Trebor acting when Leo starts to feel the heat, believable breakdown. John Glover wins as Alan Raimy, who is the brains of the plot, an actually brilliant man who becomes a pornographer and turns to a life of crime out of sheer sociopathic ennui. He's a sexual sadist and does a few particularly unpleasant things during the movie, including what I believe is a pretty well-implied rape (pay attention to his RAP sheet readout, it's easily missed, and read between the lines for the motel scene with "Slim").In common with One False Move, though not exclusively, I think the real impact of the movie is in the unusually communicative scenes of violence.So far so good but I think there's a real problem with the film. Harry Mitchell is told at one point that he has his "tit in the wringer". My problem is that Harry Mitchell is played by Roy Scheider. Roy Scheider protagonists never lose, they're self-sure and smooth, but not in an annoying way. I feel I'm being asked to believe that his character is in peril, the movie relies on this for dramatic tension; however I didn't believe it. For me it's like being asked to believe that Sandra Bullock's character is going to end up sleeping alone by the end of a romantic drama, or Stephen Seagal's character is going to get taken down by the baddies (did actually happen in one movie but was done deliberately for shock value). Roy Scheider doesn't convince as an adulterer either, you don't feel any annoyance with him at all, his character is Teflon-coated.It also felt like a movie that took some cuts. At 110 minutes it still feels underdeveloped: Harry's wife, Ann Margaret, is pretty much a cardboard cutout, an extension of Harry, her back story as a politician running for office receives scant attention. The effect that the affair has on Harry's marriage isn't properly communicated. This could be a Frankenheimer problem, he's not known for character development. I never felt that Harry was dealing with little more than an overtly annoying and erroneous tax claim from the IRS. There is good sleazy violent noir content in this film, but I feel that to be in the excellent bracket that the casting of Harry could have been done better (no disrespect to the great Roy Scheider). The film felt short, even with the long running time, and I think could have taken some more fleshing out.But you really can't forget the sleaze, like the deliciously pervy scene of Harry taking photos of Doreen in the nudie parlour.