Moorman Posted July 15, 2018 Share Posted July 15, 2018 I wanted to see this because of James Mason. Carol Reed's name vaguely rung a bell so that was extra for me. The first 10 minutes of this film was classic. It was headed for classic territory all the way up until Johnny ran into that cubby hole and hid. The final 1 hour and forty something minutes turned into a limpfest. It reminded me of Robert Mitchum limping through "Where Danger Lives". I had a inkling this was gonna go downhill when Johnny stopped on the stairs after the robbery and had that hallucination thing going. After the cubby hole, the film turned into a series of encounters that just took over the film. It wasn't a heist film anymore. It was kinda like Dorothy's family and the characters in the Wizard of Oz meet Johnny on the Yellow brick rode and try to help him get back to Oz. The ending even was unbelievable. None of the characters worked up that type of engagement for you to really feel the ending. I couldn't wait for this movie to end. I spent money streaming it so I forced myself to finish it. About 2/3rds of the way through the film reminded me of where I had heard of Carol Reed's name before. Oh yes, that other movie he did that put me to sleep, " The Third Man." The only thing he did was change up the premise from this film and basically redid it and called it " The Third Man. " Same boring plot. The film " The Informer" is how you make a Irish film with these themes. The main character got to act in that one. In this one, Mason was basically a walking MacGuffin. The movie DID look good. No problems there and the sound was very good. Other than that, it literally put me to sleep several times. I rank it a 5 out of 10 and thats only because it looks soo good..... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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