Jessie McMullen (Sean Connery) is a professional thief. His son, Vito (Dustin Hoffman), is a reformed thief who got involved in some theft apart from Jesse when he was a very young man, did time, and has been doing very well in the meat packing business though it is an occupation he hates. He has sworn that his son would get the chance to do what he loves, and so Adam (Matthew Broderick) is on the threshold of getting a master's degree in biology and seems to have a bright future ahead. It seems to be something he is passionate about.
But then Adam just drops out because the future looks all too safe and instead decides he wants the excitement of a burglary that has the potential for a big payout. Adam offers to let both Jessie and Vito in on the deal. Jessie accepts. Vido says no initially, but then decides to go along mainly to protect his son, Adam, because he knows he is completely green about such things. Complications ensue.
I think I understood Jessie and Vito, as to where their characters are coming from. Jessie is a hard guy straight out of The Asphalt Jungle who thinks "crime is just a left handed form of human endeavor" to quote said Asphalt Jungle. Vito just wants a better life for his son than he had. But Adam is a whiny selfish brat who does not appreciate what his father is trying to do for him at all. And he never has an epiphany at any point.
There is an odd situation that the film puts forth - Jessie and his girlfriend as well as Adam and his girlfriend are eating dinner at Vito's house. The girl Adam is dating, played by Victoria Jackson, reveals a way she has of cleaning up on real estate. She has a connection at Sloan Kettering who tells her who the really sick patients are so she can be the first to bid on their apartments since they usually die or are too ill to continue living in their homes. This disgusts Jessie, who has some kind of sideways morality that seems to include that it is not nice to steal from sick people or people who are down, but if they are doing fine stealing from them is AOK. If this is supposed to make me admire Jessie, it really doesn't do it for me.
And that is what this film lacks - somebody - anybody - to root for. You'd never guess going in that a film with Lumet directing and Connery, Hoffman, and Broderick acting would land with such a thud, but you'd guess wrong.
What does it do right? It has some great scenes of working class New York City as it existed around 1990. From the 80s forward, to watch most American films, you'd think everybody in New York City lived in a professionally decorated tony brownstone.
