Did you people see the same film I saw?

Absolutely brilliant

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It's amazing how many WF films creep in among his others. Only seeing this movie for the first time, the other week, I only knew beforehand, from reading the cover, Friedkin directed this cute little crime flick. The movie which has a inventory of topline actors, who all give wonderful performances is based on fact, another thing I didn't know, about the two bid crooks, who pulled off the greatest bank heist in history, a few hiccups, prefore, as blundering their way to their objective, in some quite hard to believe blunders, which I'm frightened to believe this is fact too. This robbery had attracted much notoriety, the public praising and admiring the robbers, who are much suspect than the usual suspects, and are brought in, and I think you can gather what results, or might not result, where some astounding and approving facts revealed later, as if rooting for these guys,which is hard quite not too, despite, their illicitness. Falk is just super fantastic in this, an acting force to be reckoned with, while I liked Allen Garfield a lot in this too. The film is patchy here and there, and takes a while to get to where it's going. I was actually quite disappointed for the first third of it, but it picked up. For me, it's one of those films, where earlier in the peace, you really don't know where it's going, but as I said, it's a cute little film, and worth the rental fee. Don't snub it. My recommendation.

William Friedkin directed this period piece caper-comedy, adapted from Noel Behn's non-fiction book "Big Stick-Up at Brinks", chronicling real-life 1950 robbery of Brink's headquarters which netted the crooks some three million dollars. Often-filmed heist gets a joshing tone this time out, cast with actors comfortable with each other and familiar to audiences in these particular characterizations. There are no surprises; everything has been preconceived for a safe, nondescript entertainment. For his part, Freidkin displays a light, casual touch, but the broader moments of comedy don't really come off--slapstick doesn't seem to be Friedkin's thing. Peter Falk heads up the amateur squad of thieves; he's right at home here, and his repartee with Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield and Paul Sorvino (and with Gena Rowlands as his wife) is smooth. In fact, the whole film is smooth...so smooth it slides right out of the memory. ** from ****

I remember when this movie was filmed back in 78. yeah its dating myself. The movie was filmed at MCI ( Massachusetts Correctional Facility) Concord, Concord Mass. My father while actually working there was an extra. I had a chance to meet Mr.Falk and a few others as a kid ( I was ten). We had free tickets to the opening. I thought it was an awesome movie about bungling thieves. Most folks expected a serious thief/heist movie. Although based on an actual event. I found the movie comical. Although it didn't have Mini coopers jumping through a European city. It did serve its purpose as a good funny movie. A good buy as a bargain.

A neat little crime caper, and I wonder why we never see it on any of the cable networks. Falk was great, as were Peter Boyle and Warren Oates, and believe or not, Paul Sorvinio was in this one too! Realistic, and pretty honest.