Harry y Walter van a Nueva York

This film is one of those films in which the elements fail to come together. It is clearly an attempt to recreate the lightning in a bottle of The Sting some years earlier. However it does not measure up for a number of reasons.

Firstly the truly boring title does the film no favours. It is not surprising the audience stayed away despite this having obvious star power. Like The Sting the main stars are a couple of con men. The comedy is very broad, almost slapstick at times. This tends to undermine any tension in the film. And I'm not convinced that either Caan or Gould have any aptitude for this kind of broad comedy (and neither, I think, do they, if their subsequent career moves are an indication).

However, there are certain times when nastiness creeps in, the most obvious example is when Gould is locked in a safe. Yes, that's comedy gold, having a man almost suffocate to death.

Not only are the con men much more buffoonish than in The Sting, but they are also more contemptible. When we first see them, they are stealing money from ordinary members of the public. Why on earth would we be sympathetic to their escapades from then on? While in The Sting the objective was to rob another (and worse) villain, here the target is a normal bank containing real people's money. An attempt to show the manager as corrupt and lecherous does not undermine the fact that the bank contains real people's money and at a time when banks could go out of business.

Ultimately, no one really cares about these two thieves and whether they succeed in their venture.