Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by tinear (A) on August 16, 2005 at 07:57:59

In Reply to: Favorite "Heist" Films posted by Jim Campilongo on August 15, 2005 at 06:30:20:

I agree with your list of heist films, btw.
Your point about Durning and Shaw in The Sting is well-taken, however, it isn't the actors I found lacking but the whimsical direction and that almost childish camaraderie and banter between Newman and Redford that undermined what could have been a more hard-hitting and therefore more effective thriller.
Newman, especially, around this time, began to "grin" way too much and go, well, "cutesy."
Another example was his character in Cool Hand Luke. That egg-eating contest stuff was way over the top Hollywood crap and the Aw-shucks blonde male bimbo guy (Kennedy?) who had earlier punched the shit out of Luke became this cuddly big lapdog. Yuck.
That's another film that couldn't be dark enough because women wouldn't stand it: it had to be cutesy to fit the Hollywood formula.
I like more verisimilitude in my films, at least to consider them excellent films as opposed to good entertainment, which these films all are.