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#88 - The Asphalt Jungle
John Huston, 1950
A bunch of criminals plan a bank heist but it doesn't go off as planned.
A solid effort on Huston's part that seems like the grandfather of all heist movies. I was impressed enough with Rififi (which feels like a French rip-off of this, now that I think about it) but even so, I merely found this one to be alright. Huston is in his prime here and balances a number of character arcs around the familiar "botched heist" narrative, but the end result leaves a bit to be desired. There are multiple well-acted characters but they don't have much in the way of development so it's a little hard to care about their predicaments. Not even Sterling Hayden's protagonist and his oddly noble goal of buying back his old family farm with the proceeds from the heist do much to endear us to him. Having an extended heist sequence play out in the middle of the film is a good choice (again ripped by Rififi) but once again it feels like a rough draft for things to come rather than impressive in its own right.
John Huston, 1950
A bunch of criminals plan a bank heist but it doesn't go off as planned.
A solid effort on Huston's part that seems like the grandfather of all heist movies. I was impressed enough with Rififi (which feels like a French rip-off of this, now that I think about it) but even so, I merely found this one to be alright. Huston is in his prime here and balances a number of character arcs around the familiar "botched heist" narrative, but the end result leaves a bit to be desired. There are multiple well-acted characters but they don't have much in the way of development so it's a little hard to care about their predicaments. Not even Sterling Hayden's protagonist and his oddly noble goal of buying back his old family farm with the proceeds from the heist do much to endear us to him. Having an extended heist sequence play out in the middle of the film is a good choice (again ripped by Rififi) but once again it feels like a rough draft for things to come rather than impressive in its own right.