Verdict
Summary
An unusual approach to the standard issue heist subgenre of the thriller, The Anderson Tapes gets real interesting in the final quarter as the team is set up to fail, and while I found the conclusion a little disappointing, I still feel like director Sidney Lumet milked the tension for all it was worth and gave the film a style it might not have had under someone else’s direction.
Plot:
An ex-con gets the mob to finance an audacious heist that is being monitored by several intelligence agencies.
Review:
After a 10-year stretch where he never ratted out the mob for a plea deal, Duke Anderson (Sean Connery going for a more earthy performance than Bond) is released, and he immediately begins planning a big heist of a swanky apartment complex where his girlfriend Ingrid (Dyan Cannon) lives. He gets the go-ahead from the mob, and he begins enlisting some old and new comrades, including a friend from his cellblock who was also just released, The Kid (Christopher Walken in his first role), and a gay antique expert named Tommy (Martin Balsam) who can help the crew scope out valuables in a pre-planned scheme where Tommy will inspect each apartment under the owners’ noses before the heist. Unbeknownst to Anderson and his crew, they are being monitored and audio and visually recorded by several different government agencies to entrap him and the mob, and so when the heist goes down, the whole thing is basically a trap for Anderson and his team, and so the trick will not pulling the heist off, but in figuring out how to escape once they’re ready to run.
An unusual approach to the standard issue heist subgenre of the thriller, The Anderson Tapes gets real interesting in the final quarter as the team is set up to fail, and while I found the conclusion a little disappointing, I still feel like director Sidney Lumet milked the tension for all it was worth and gave the film a style it might not have had under someone else’s direction. Connery is good in an unglamorous role (even though he has several love scenes with the beautiful Cannon), and other performances – including a young Walken – are solid and interesting to watch. Quincy Jones provides the weird, off-putting electronic score, and overall, this one should appeal to Connery’s devoted fans, as well as retro heist thrillers.
Kino Lorber’s brand new Blu-ray edition of The Anderson Tapes comes in a nice high definition transfer with a new audio commentary by film historian Glenn Kenny, plus some trailers and a slipcover.
