User Reviews

On the face of it, CHARLEY VARRICK really shouldn't work as well as it does. It's a slightly predictable and hackneyed story about a gang of bank robbers who accidentally steal from the mob and find themselves on the run, directed by Don Siegel, the man best known for his collaborations with Clint Eastwood. It's a resolutely low budget production, quite rough around the edges, and in Walter Matthau it has a leading man best known for his comedy roles.

And yet, and yet, CHARLEY VARRICK works, and works very well. Sure, it's a slow burner throughout, and it's never as suspenseful or exciting as it should be, but it has a certain kind of atmosphere all of its own and a depth of characterisation you don't normally see in a thriller. The visuals are great, and the film is book-ended by two classic scenes; the opening bank robbery is brief but thrilling, while the climactic plane action really impresses. Matthau is excellent as the lead, and given fine, twitchy support from Andrew Robinson as his accomplice and Joe Don Baker as the hit-man. Watch out for a scene-stealing John Vernon in a particularly slimy role.

This quick-moving thriller demonstrates that cinematic amorality has been around a long time. Made in 1973, it allows crop-duster and bank-robber, Charley Varrick, played by Walter Matthau, to get away with a heap of stolen money, the theft of which has led to the death of about half a dozen people, including his wife. The movie is directed, in his usual snappy but artful way, by Don Siegel, who taught Clint Eastwood everything Clint knows about direction, but not necessarily everything Don knew.

The movie also demonstrates that in the days when movies spent less time on technical wizardry, they could spend more on character development. For example, on "Molly" (Joe Don Baker), a courteous but sadistic heavy from the deep South, who can beat a man to death without losing his cool or creasing his sharp suit. Other noteworthy character studies are Andy Robinson as Charley's sweaty, weasly accomplice; Sheree North as a two-timing photographer; John Vernon as Maynard Boyle, a suave but crooked bank owner; and Marjorie Bennett as a nosey trailer park resident.

The plotline is supposed to be that Charley expects to get only a modest sum from the bank heist, and then has to get his thinking cap and skates on when he realises he's taken a pile of Mafia loot. But Siegel teases us, and it's never very clear just how much Charley knows and how far ahead he's thinking; perhaps there was an insider and Charley knew about the big money before the raid. Overall, can we believe what we're seeing, or is Siegel playing with us, like Bryan Singer in The Usual Suspects?

Which leads to the third thing demonstrated by this and other Siegel movies - that current hotshots like Quintin Tarantino owe him a debt.

(Incidentally, those IMDb commenters who are offended by Charley bedding Boyle's secretary (Felicia Farr) because she is too young for him should check Ms Farr's DOB. Also, she was married to Jack Lemmon, Matthau's friend and film-partner, so the bedroom scene is something of an in-joke.)

It seems a little off to call such a cold blooded story "fun", but that's exactly what Charley Varrick is. It's a neat little crime caper, a look at the cultural zeitgeist of the early 1970s and features Walter Matthau as one of the most ruthless bastards in cinematic history.

The simple but still interesting and effective plot starts with a bank robbery in a small New Mexico town. Charley Varrick (Walter Matthau) is a middle-aged pilot who's gone from flying in air shows to being a crop duster. When bigger companies start to push him out of the business, he decides to start robbing banks. Yeah, that seems like an odd decision but the movie makes it subtly clear that Varrick has more than a bit of experience with the criminal world in his past. Though they get away with the bank's money, two-thirds of Varrick's gang ends up dead and Charley's worried the same thing will happen to the rest of them after they discover the small town bank held over 750 thousand dollars. As Charley explains to Harman (Andrew Robinson), the young and reckless surviving member of the gang, the only way a tiny bank in a backwater town could have that much money on hand is if it were mob money being hidden from the authorities.

Charley's right about that. Bank president Maynard Boyle (John Vernon) and branch manager Harold Young (Woodrow Parfrey) have been laundering money for the Mafia. Boyle and Young aren't just concerned about the robbery. They're also worried that their mob friends will blame them for the theft, La Cosa Nostra being notorious for its suspicion of coincidence. The explanation that a crew of professional bank robbers just happened to hit a nothing little bank in a nothing little town on the exact day it was holding a stash of Mafia money isn't likely to satisfy them. So Boyle dispatches a pipe-smoking cowboy of a hit-man named Molly (Joe Don Baker) to track down the robbers, though Molly's also instructed to find out if Boyle and Young were behind the theft.

Charley seems to know it's just a matter of time before the cops or the mob run him down. The only question is…what will he have to do to get away?

Let me acknowledge that Charley Varrick shares two things with a lot of other films from the 1970s. Visually, it looks a lot like a TV movie by today's standards and it has a more leisurely pace than most modern crime stories. While it's actually more realistic for things to unfold the way they do here, folks used to the rat-tat-tat-tat speed of current films may find Charley Varrick a bit slow. If those things don't bother you, though, this is a very nice piece of work.

There's a beguiling moral vacuousness to this film. The title character is a truly evil person, even worse in some ways than the mob guys out to kill him. Yet, the story treats his unflinching heartlessness as though it were merely a natural and proper reflection of the world in which Varrick lives. The slogan of Varrick's crop dusting company is "The Last of the Independents" and the film uses that as something of a rallying cry. It treats him as the symbol of the ordinary guy being squeezed by larger forces in society, whether it's the law, the mob or big business. That Varrick has the brains and boldness to take those larger forces is portrayed as admirable, even though the actions he takes to do so are undeniably horrible.

The movie also reflects the 70s conceit that crime and the underworld are never more than an inch under the surface anywhere in America. That a bank president would be in bed with the Mafia is treated as the most unsurprising thing in the world. The existence of men like Molly, who cruise through the world like sharks, is considered a normal and expected aspect of life.

The acting in this film is quite good. Joe Don Baker plays Molly as a man who lives by very strict rules but relishes inflicting pain and death within those guidelines. Andrew Robinson plays Harman as a boy in a man's world, incapable for seeing beyond his immediate wants and impulses. William Schallert as the sheriff investigating the bank robbery manages to make him a genuinely good man but not one who's naïve to the bad world in which his lives. Walter Matthau also gives a great demonstration of "movie star charisma". Charley Varrick is not a colorful or larger-than-life guy. He's plain spoken and his only affectation is chewing gum. But Matthau manages to hold your attention every second he's on the screen, to the point you can't help but empathize with this vicious and unredeemed man.

Charley Varrick is from another cultural and filmmaking era. If you've had little experience with that era, this movie might be a bit of an acquired taste. Give it a chance, though, and you'll find watching this film to be very rewarding.

"Charley Varrick" plays like a Richard Stark novel, a classic heist/getaway flick. My eyes were glued to to the screen just watching Walter Matthau work. And he's perfectly at home playing the street-savvy bank robber. Guy's got that disheveled grumpy look to him, and he makes for a sly bad guy.

And then John Vernon shows up with his sinister timber, followed soon after by Stetsoned hit-man Joe Don Baker. Seems an odd casting choice, but this is a Don Siegel movie. Things just get better from then on. The junkyard showdown proved to be a nail-biter of an ending, but we always knew Matthau would somehow have the last laugh.

It's slickly produced and engaging from start to finish. But with Siegel at the helm, Lalo Schifrin dong the music, and Matthau's assured criminal professionalism, it was bound to be good.

7/10

The decision to cast Walter Matthau as the eponymous anti-hero of this entertaining heist movie proved to be highly inspired because not only did he turn in a great performance but also, because of his deportment and mannerisms etc., immediately signalled that Varrick is far from being a stereotypical small-time criminal. By dispelling any audience preconceptions in this way, his character is established very naturally and soon becomes a rich source of interest in a fascinating story that was based on John Reese's novel "The Looters".

Ex-stunt pilot Charley Varrick runs a crop-dusting business and supplements his income by robbing small banks. He's been successful because his crimes have been low-profile but his luck changes when his gang robs the bank at Tres Cruces, New Mexico, because a patrolman recognises that their getaway car is displaying stolen plates and the sequence of events that follows, results in the whole operation getting out of control. Two police officers and a gang member are killed during the robbery and Charley's wife and getaway driver, Nadine (Jacqueline Scott) is also shot and later dies from her injury. Charley and Harman Sullivan (Andrew Robinson), the gang's only survivors, then hide out in a trailer park.

After Charley hears a radio news bulletin that claims that the robbers got away with less than $2,000 and discovers that the money they've actually got amounts to $750,000, he immediately realises that the small bank was obviously being used as a "drop" for mob money that was subsequently due to be sent out of the country to be laundered. With the police and the Mafia guaranteed to be pursuing them, Charley doesn't want to use the cash immediately because he knows that the Mafia will be relentless in hunting down the cash and the thieves. This idea doesn't go down well with Harman who isn't so concerned about the danger they're in and remains determined to go on a spending spree without delay.

Maynard Boyle (John Vernon) who's the head of the corporation that owns the bank at Tres Cruces, hires hit man Molly (Joe Don Baker) to recover the stolen money and deal with the bank robbers. Charley wastes no time as he devises an ingenious survival plan which involves the use of switched dental records, fake passports and a crop-duster plane to try to extricate himself from the tight spot that he's in.

"Charley Varrick" is a gritty, violent and action-packed movie with some great stunts and a good deal of humour but it's the strength of its plot and Charley's character that really elevates it to a higher standard than the average crime thriller.

Charley is an interesting character because he's older than the average bank robber and is essentially an easy-going guy who wants to make a living by his own efforts. His crop-dusting business isn't viable because the bigger outfits have the power to squeeze the smaller businesses out and so he uses his criminal activities to maintain his independence. What's more surprising about this man (whose business slogan is "The Last of the Independents") is how resourceful he proves to be as he executes his plan and outwits his foes in what turns out to be a David and Goliath type scenario.

Walter Matthau's superb performance is complemented by great work from the supporting cast with Andrew Robinson (as Charley's not-so-bright, hot-headed sidekick) and Joe Don Baker (as the sadistic hit man who enjoys his work) also excellent in their memorable roles.

Director Don Siegel is on top of his game with this engaging bit of entertainment, a niftily plotted and violent yarn. Walter Matthau is aces in the title role, a crop duster who decides to pull off a bank heist with his wife Nadine (Jacqueline Scott) and hot headed younger partner Harman (Andrew Robinson). Needless to say, the heist goes awry, but that's NOT the twist. The twist is that their substantial take (3/4 of $1 million) is actually laundered Mafia money. Now Charley has to convince Harman to withhold from spending any of the money right away while doing some real problem solving. Meanwhile, the Mob sends a cool-as-can-be hit-man, "Molly" (Joe Don Baker), after Charley and company.

What's key to making a lot of this work is that, for the most part, it's convincing. Based on the novel "The Looters" by John Reese, and scripted by Howard Rodman and Dean Riesner, the film does a great job of storytelling, keeping its grip through a deliberately paced hour and 51 minutes. It doesn't take very long for the action to start, and the situation now facing Charley and Harman is a compelling one. You have to wonder how he's going to think his way out of it, especially since it's fairly common knowledge that the Mafia has a LONG memory and will keep pursuing Charley unless they think that he is already dead. But Charley is a pretty crafty guy, and it's hard to say just how aware he was of what he was getting into. He's got surprises in store, for both the other characters *and* the audience.

Matthau is excellent in a low key and believable portrayal. Robinson is fun as the punkish young partner. The casting of Felicia Farr is a neat in-joke considering that she was married to Matthaus' frequent co-star Jack Lemmon. John Vernon is solid as the bank executive with his own problems to solve. The superb supporting cast reads like a Who's Who of talent of the time: Sheree North, Norman Fell, Benson Fong, Woodrow Parfrey, William Schallert, Albert Popwell, Christina Hart. Look for Matthaus' son Charles as a boy carrying roses. Siegel himself has the small role of Murphy, and Bob Steele has his last (uncredited) screen role as a bank guard.

Highlighted by Lalo Schifrins' energetic music score and Michael C. Butlers' vibrant cinematography, "Charley Varrick" slowly but surely makes its way towards an exciting car vs. plane chase finale, and a delicious final resolution.

Eight out of 10.