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I saw "Slither" when it was first released to theaters in 1973 (it played as a second-bill to "Uptown Saturday Night"--now there's a combination!). I knew nothing about this picture, nobody seemed to know where it came from, yet by the finish I couldn't wait to see it again. Today, it is as fresh and darkly comic as a Coen Brothers movie. James Caan (at his best) plays low-keyed, amiable, freshly-sprung ex-con who, right off the train, gets involved with a series of lunatics. They involve him in a scheme to retrieve some embezzled loot, and one by one start taxing Caan's patience. Sally Kellerman is terrific as a sexy neurotic; she's very flaky and funny giving her insights on situations which stops everyone in their tracks. Peter Boyle and Louise Lasser are a hoot as a suburban couple who get mixed up in the mayhem, leading to a riotous car chase involving a motor home and two vans. If the conclusion doesn't exactly deliver on the early promise, that's OK because "Slither" is totally unconventional (even its title is obscure!). *** from ****

One of those films that make you realise just how good American cinema could be in the 70s. The plot is less important than the beautifully written and performed off-beat characters, all in their own way in search of an elusive (and finally impossible) pot of gold.

But perhaps the strongest feature of the film are the set pieces: James Caan gets a lift in the truck of a grumpy farmer: "Get out of my truck!" "Well, can you stop it first?"; Caan visits the 'head' in a diner, and a terrified customer comes rushing in - what's scared him?; the final ten minutes, a trailer marooned in the middle of the road, destruction all around, and James Caan finally waking up (existentially): "What the f*** am I doing here in a vegetable stand in the middle of nowhere?"

Caan showing a subtle touch with light/black comedy, the glorious Sally Kellerman, Peter Boyle as always wacky as hell ...

Pure gold.

An ex-con stumbles across America, meeting one oddball character after another, while being pursued by a mysterious black minivan. The characters are wonderful - oddball without being exaggerated or overdone. The plot is engrossing. It's a wonderful piece of 70s anarchy. It is very clear that this must have been a big influence on the Coen brothers movies. That combination of deadpan observation of personal quirk and absurdity, combined with violence and a twisting plot. The Big Lebowski is a clear example of where you'll this film's influence. All the performances are great, with Sally Kellerman being her usual unforgettable self.

"Slither" is a perfect, subversive, character-driven comedy that in its own way belongs in the same category as "Pocket Money." Both are sly, low-key studies of American losers, with McGuffins in both films merely serving as excuses for the characters to bump up against each other and to wrestle with their sweet, ever-lasting ineptitude. Not the least of "Slithers"'s triumphs is its perfect cast. Could any film fan in his right mind have imagined James Caan, Peter Boyle, Sally Kellerman, Allen Garfield, Richard B. Schull, and Alex Rocco (the latter was "Moe Green" in "The Godfather") in the same movie? Caan is wonderful as a laconic, recently released con whose brief visit with an old friend turns into a comedic nightmare involving murder, the hunt for a bag of money, and continuing sinister goings-on. The plot, which isn't meant to be taken seriously, never gets in the way of the picture's real interest: examining the human off-kilteredness that lies just inches below the surface of American life. Boyle steals the film as a classic American type, the small-town third-rate entertainer who performs masterfully at Kiwanis Club dances and similar venues. His patented shtick while emceeing an event is so breathtakingly awful, you either want to condole with him or grab a barf bag. Kellerman is equally good as every man's worst nightmare, a nut case who is likely to remind many males in the audience of a certain former girlfriend known briefly. To Caan's--and our--astonishment, she goes from intriguingly sexy to nutty to dangerously nutty in all of 15 minutes of screen time; nor can he get rid of her once he's bedded her. Louise Lasser's role is small and offers her less opportunity to shine, but she's perfect as Boyle's loyal, compliant wife who never seems to know that she's married to a squirm-inducing jerk. Script and direction mesh perfectly, and Caan is terrific as an unflappable stoic who seems to have wandered into the wrong film by mistake and finds himself confronted with one outrageous situation after another. It feels cathartic when he finally lets go and belts Kellerman towards the end of the movie. An A+ for this exceptional off-beat "little" film that one day may be rediscovered and hailed as a classic of its kind.

Had long been curious about this movie-especially after first watching the beginning scene on YouTube-so I was ecstatic to finally check this out at my local library. James Caan is a recent parolee who encounters various people drifting down the road like Sally Kellerman when her car is temporarily out of commission or Peter Boyle who he has to meet concerning some money. Louise Lasser, Richard B. Shull, and Alex Rocco are among the supporting cast. I'll just now say that while there's some funny bits and lines, this was mostly played straight concerning characterization and plot. Yes, it meanders quite a bit but that's part of the movie's charm. So on that note, Slither is worth a look.

James Caan is known as a tough guy, but he plays an entirely different character here. He is an ex con fresh out of jail and gets mixed up with eccentric criminals in which he thinks there will be a big payoff in the end. It's a comedy in which James plays his character in a kind, gentle way. You get the feeling he is going along to get along and those around him are crazy. Sally Kellerman is great as a crazy woman who meets Caan by chance and just won't go away. Peter Boyle also is good as a shady criminal trying to get money. Overall the plot is thin, but the ride is fun.

James Caan plays Dick Kanipsia, a high school jock turned ex-convict who connects with embezzler Barry Fenaka (Peter Boyle); with the latters' wife Mary (Louise Lasser) in tow, they hit the road, in a red muscle car pulling a silver Airstream. The goal is to find a long-hidden stash of money. However, two ominous black vans are always dogging the trio, so it's clear that there ARE other interested parties.

Somewhat forgotten over time, this is an agreeable dark-humored crime picture with director Howard Zieff displaying a nice, light touch while making the most of the script by the great W. D. Richter. Although there is some violence and gore, the filmmakers are able to never let this get particularly unpleasant. Overall, the film is no great shakes, but then it's not exactly aiming to be in the first place. It's just an amusing road movie with a number of fun twists along the way.

The movie goes far on the engaging quality of the cast. Caan is amiable and low-key, and has good chemistry with the slightly shady Boyle; Lasser is endearing, and other familiar actors like Allen Garfield, Richard B. Shull, Alex Rocco, and Len Lesser turn up in entertaining supporting roles. But the show is stolen by a very sexy Sally Kellerman as an eccentric traveler who also gets involved in the action. She's a real character: a pill-popping, pistol packing, short shorts wearing free spirit who says some damn funny things. Basically, it's a hoot to watch so many of the other individuals in this story keep trying Dicks' patience.

By the end of the movie, you can hardly blame Dick for what he does! It's the perfect capper on this offbeat tale.

Seven out of 10.

This was a rather awkward little movie to watch and I'm not sure what to think about this one. The movie is definitely supposed to be fun but it just isn't. I didn't realize this movie was supposed to be a comedy until the music kicked in, which was definitely comedy-style. The movie is made in a far too serious style.

The movie could had worked out, if only the director was just a better one. It was Howard Zieff's first movie and this definitely shows on screen. Nothing flows well, the characters don't always work out and because of this all the movie also doesn't work out as it was supposed to. I guess that in its core the movie had some more potential but the execution of the mixture of styles works out unbalanced, with as a result a movie that hardly ever works out.

James Caan still tried to make his character more interesting by portraying him as a sort of shy loser. Perhaps he did this because he wanted to do something totally different after his role in "The Godfather", which he had just completed before this movie. But I mean come on! James Caan is just not believable as a loser. He is far too cool looking for that, especially in the '70's he was.

There isn't much to the story really. To me it seemed like a moder retelling of "Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo", set in modern small-town USA. Problem is that there just isn't happening much interesting in the story at all. At points the movie could had really used some more pace and more exciting sequences with action in it.

The movie mostly tries to be fun with its quirky characters that pop-up into the movie. It makes the movie fairly amusing and prevents it from being completely unwatchable but its all not good enough to make this movie a recommendable one either.

It's just not a very funny movie. A movie that missed its mark completely but it luckily still has some redeeming qualities to save this movie from being a complete disaster.

5/10

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One could find fault with elements of this movie, particularly pacing and continuity; but the laughs and the ambiguous, fascinating characters make it great fun.

Until the very end, we're never sure if anybody is who they seem to be. The quest for loot is fascinating, because it's not for a fortune, just a nice chunk of change that when split probably wouldn't amount to a year's wages at an average job. So the interest focuses on the people, their semi-silly adventure, and their uncertain relationships.

One reviewer didn't like it because it wasn't tightly plotted, and he's right-- it's more realistic/absurd than that. Same reviewer also didn't find it funny, which is dead wrong. Some of the comic bits are a little shaggy dog, or sometimes crude, but most people should get a lot of laughs from it.

Great cast, great acting, good enough dialog and "plot" add up to an under-appreciated (and, I suppose,under-seen) little gem.

Dick Kanipsia (James Caan) gets released from prison. His friend Harry brings him to his rundown home where he gets killed in a hail of bullets. With his dying breath, he tells Dick about a stolen loot, Barry Fenaka (Peter Boyle), and Vicent Palmer before blowing up the house. He encounters free spirit Kitty Kopetzky (Sally Kellerman) but runs away when she turns out to be an unstable armed robber. He finds Fenaka and his wife who drives him on the search for Palmer and the stolen loot with an Airstream trailer. They find that they're being followed by two black vans.

I like the initial chemistry of the unstableness of Kellerman with the scruffy goodness of James Caan. When she goes away for awhile, the movie stalls. I expect Boyle to deliver humor but they're not actually laughs. It's a little quirky with a good helping of 70s grunge. I'd prefer Kellerman and Caan to stay together the whole way riding the emotional rollercoaster. Instead, the sexual heat dissipates. There is the high tension thriller aspect but it never really elevates. The villains follow him at arms' length. They're like menacing mimes. They try to kill him at the same time that they're bad at it. It's half trying to be funny or half trying to be thrilling. I'm not sure it achieves either.

I enjoy quirky movies, but more importantly, I enjoy movies that have a well-developed plot line. This movie is the former but not the latter. I'm not going to get into the details of the plot line because, though complex, it ends up being basically pointless. This is a movie that epitomizes the expression: "It's not the destination, but the journey, that counts." Sorry, but I only spend my hard-earned money and time on films that have a destination, that have some reason for existing. This one doesn't seem to. What is the appeal that this obscure movie holds for so many people? If a bordeline-slapstick storyline with strange but uninteresting characters is what counts for originality in film, then that must be why almost every review of this I have read says it's terrific. Evidently, it is a comedy, but I did not laugh once. Obviously, I must be missing the part of the brain that all these other reviewers have that makes them find this downright hilarious. There are some terrific actors here: James Caan, Peter Boyle, Sally Kellerman, and they can turn in good performances blindfolded, so their work here is what keeps this from being a totally bad film. Only Allen Garfield's scuzzy character showing up late in the film kept me interested. They should have just made a movie about him, instead. This movie is not a sleeper, it is a movie that's just asleep.

Completely Inoffensive and Mildly Engaging Offbeat Black Comedy that is a Crime Story Punctuated with Quirky Characters and Odd Situations. James Caan is at the Center of this Iconic Seventies Cast Including Peter Boyle, Sally Kellerman, Louise Lasser and a Few RecVees.

It Moves Along Comfortably while Occasionally Hitting Speed Bumps and Veering Off Center Shifting Tones While Playing Everything Perfectly Dead Panned and Straight. Kellerman Steals the Show but Not Totally Playing a Most Energetic and Eccentric Air-Head, as Everyone Seems to be Having a Grand Old Time.

Not for All Tastes it is an MGM Movie when the Studio was Dying and Frankly it didn't have a Clue what was Going On Culturally at the Time as Films were Exploding with a New Found Independence and a Near Fifty Year Formula Followed by the Industry had Recently Crumbled into Dust.

Overall, Worth a Watch for its Differentness and to See a Good Cast at Play. It's a Hoot of a Heist Movie that was Experimental and it Works Quite Well Most of the Time.

I usually either don't like, or hate, action comedies - though Slither isn't one entirely. But, as far as it IS an action one, it's the best one ever made, and (to me) about the most underrated comedy of ANY category. Most comedies or dramas about cops and robbers (or about criminals, period) promise to be about the CHARACTERS more than anything, but this one keeps that promise completely. I do have one complaint about the Sally Kellerman character, and that's that, in most of the film, she was a sort of WOULD-BE maniacal character, and that one scene of her actually holding up a diner spoils that in a way. But at least that scene gave James Caan the chance to do what he did best in the movie, which was acting horrifed or disgusted by everything that happened around him. Somehow, this doesn't wear thin anywhere in the movie, especially in his scenes with Kellerman. I usually don't like crude dialogue when it's there just for the sake of it, but the laundromat scene, where she grosses him out with her talk, is done just right, and that's why it's funny. I have what is probably a real minority opinion about the film version of MASH, and that's that it works EXCEPT for the "Burns and Houlihan" scenes, which (to me) were a real waste of both her and Duvall (including that hugely famous scene). All I can say is that anyone wanting to see Sally Kellerman in a FUNNY role should see Slither instead. The same is true of Peter Boyle and Louise Lasser, and all the character actors in smaller parts, all the way to the ones in the bingo hall scene. I don't know why most other comedies of this category can't at least APPROACH this one.

I had never heard of this oddly titled movie (no, it's NOT about snakes) until it showed up on TCM. With people like James Caan and Peter Boyle involved, I had to take a look.

It's an odd movie, being ostensibly a crime-and-chase flick. But all the absurdly comic shenanigans and traditional crime teasers lead ultimately to an oddly deflating conclusion which somehow points to the ultimate absurdity of things. All the crime premises of the movie seem to be an elaborate McGuffin, to use Hitchcock's phrase. The closest film to it I can think of is "Charade," where all the complicated events seems to go nowhere, but you enjoy the ride anyway.

The movie does indeed keep you involved, if only to see what silliness will occur next. The script, acting and direction are all fine, although many times during the film I had to wonder what Alan Arkin would have done with James Caan's role. Also, the film's production values are topnotch; it's great to look at.

Altogether a very entertaining hour and a half. But I'd love to know just why they titled it "Slither."

"Big Lebowski" wannabe stuff. Problem is it's about half as funny as the Coen Brothers down and out, black comedy classic, while the characters are twice as tiresome. Particularly irritating was Sally Kellerman. Far from falling in love with Kitty Kopetski, as did a previous reviewer, I kept hoping against hope that once Caan's Richard Kanipsia ditched her at the diner she'd stay ditched. And Peter Boyle's performance is a veritable treatise on over reaching for humor that is not there. Caan makes the wise choice to under play it and thus emerges relatively unscathed and Richard B Shull and Alan Garfield have brief moments of glorious schlub-dom but, all in all, this film is a dreary, sour assemblage of dreary, sour people. Certainly expected more from screenwriter Rick Richter, whose "Body Snatchers 75" pulled off the neat trick of being terrifying and risible in equal measure, than lame riffs on Polish-ness and a greed parable that is of interest to no one. And the music, as if to overcompensate for the inadequacy of Richter's screenplay, is way too cute and intrusive. Give it a C plus.

A James Caan (R. I. P.) vehicle from 1973. Caan has just got out of jail & his pick-up man mentions a connection he can make w/a thief after he & his abode are riddled w/gunfire before he blows himself & his home apart. Caan next meets w/Sally Kellerman whose car has broken down by the side of the road & after fixing her car, they travel to the next town where they hook up romantically which becomes short-lived after a diner stop Caan finds Kellerman holding up the joint. Caan finally makes it to his connect, played by Peter Boyle & his wife, Lousie Lasser, who turns out went to school w/Caan. Caan & his new found partners hit the road pulling a camper behind them (hell let's make a vacay out of it!) to meet up w/another man who will give them over 300 grand he's been holding for Boyle (money him & his blown up partner embezzled) but as the trio, soon quartet since Kellerman rejoins Caan for some inexplicable reason, head toward their lucrative rendezvous, mysterious black vans are seen tailing them whose intent is unknown. All of this amiable nonsense spawned from a script by W. D. Richter (Dracula '79/Buckaroo Bonzai) ambles along at its own pace never as important as the people populating the film which could be a good thing for a time killer but if you're looking for something substantial, grab a sandwich from the fridge. Also starring Allen Garfield as Caan's money man & Alex Rocco (Moe Green from the Godfather reuniting w/Caan) as one Garfield's men.

Slither is a comedy but its the type that never clearly announces that it is one. You just better pick up on the humor in this series of bizarre events. James Caan plays a recently released prisoner who gets drawn into a crosscountry search for embezelled money. Which is made up of a number of strange episodes and all the while a mysterious black van follows. Some of it is amusing and it never stays in one place for too long. It's also a movie you'll find yourself asking "what's going on?" constantly. Not just because of what's intentionally obscured in the plot but even what directly happens is so strange.

James Caan gets out of prison with half a secret. He learned from his late cell-mate the name of the guy who is holding a few hundred grand of embezzled loot. He tracks down Peter Boyle, who knows the name of the town where the guy lives. It's the same premise as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

They set off in a well-stocked recreational vehicle to get the loot, with Boyle's wife Louise Lasser along for a "bit of a holiday." Rounding out the all-star cast are Sally Kellerman (RIP), Allan Garfield and Alex Rocco.

Howard Zieff didn't direct a lot of movies, but he showed a lot of confidence in his material and his actors to have them deliver their lines without a lot of face-pulling or histrionics. When you see a movie like this it's even more lamentable that within a few years movie comedy came to mean Steve Martin acting like a tool, Eddie Murphy mugging or Tom Hanks shouting.

Caan is more in the Alex Baldwin school of comedy. Manly and good-looking but something trapped in that vast reservoir of intensity that translates well in a dark comedy. I want to know where he went in the 80s because I see a lot of years where he could have been on screen entertaining American moviegoers.

As for Kellerman (RIP) I loved her from the movies everyone loved her in (M*A*S*H* and Back To School) but any man who can watch that scene in the motel room and not immediately fall in love with her needs to check for pennies on his own eyes. She not only had smoke coming off her, I think I saw flames. Quick cut to the diner scene and she's an over-caffienated lunatic at 2 a.m. Then in the laundromat she does ''chew and show" with an exasperated Caan. I fell in love with her all over again.

I suppose only the period between Bonnie & Clyde and Jaws could Hollywood have produced a conspiracy comedy road picture but this was it.

Probably Caan's best movie , a great cast, subtle comedy, brilliant direction and pure originality.