The Anderson Tapes

Sean Connery plays a jail bird who's let out and decides to pull another heist with the help of a team of experienced crooks; little does he know the cops are monitoring everything.

What's so unique about this film by Sidney Lumet, in superb form as director, is that heist films rarely mount the tension by showing us the cops' side -- here it's like a ticking time bomb, we're just waiting for Connery and his crew to be arrested and we know that they don't know that the cops know (err...) and the result is pretty tense.

No fault found in the acting: Connery and a very young Christopher Walken (in his film debut) are great, particularly Walken who shows extensive range very early on. After seeing this I was reminded of his recent role in the "Stepford Wives" remake and had to wonder why he's resorting to such trash, because he's just as talented (almost, anyway) as De Niro and Pacino and the difference is he wasted a lot of this during the '80s and '90s by taking on small bits in horrible films. I mean, in 2003 he starred in KANGAROO JACK. C'mon!

Overall THE ANDERSON TAPES is a tense and unique crime thriller that, although very "70s-ish" is entertaining, if a bit outdated in terms of technology. I'm sure it will be remade some day, there's a lot of potential, however I doubt it'll ever come close to the original.

4/5

Along the same lines as (but not quite as good as) "The Thomas Crown Affair" and "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three", this quirky heist drama manages to hold the attention and entertain despite some slow points and the unavoidable datedness of its trappings. Connery (revealing his natural pate after having donned toupees for his role as James Bond and other films) is a recently released convict who is barely out the door before he's planning his next caper. First stop is ex-girlfriend Cannon's luxury apartment where she is all too willing to give him everything she's got, both physical and material, even at the risk of losing her sugar daddy/john (Shull.) He decides to clean out the whole building of it's valuables with the assistance of various crime characters. He calls upon fellow ex-cons Walken (in his screen debut) and Gottlieb along with feminine antique dealer Balsam (in a outrageous, uncharacteristic performance!) and a couple of others. After careful preparation (and the aide of gangster King, in a showy part), the men go about stripping the building clean with varied resistance from it's motley band of tenants (several of whom were noted TV performers at the time and/or afterwards.) From the opening of the film, Connery is taped by all sorts of surveillance cameras and is revealed to be in the state of being recorded by any and all varieties of agencies and individuals for one reason or another. This gives the film an eerie "Big Brother" feel at times, even if the concept isn't always completely followed through upon. Many of these moments are punctuated by the innovative, but occasionally irritating musical sounds of composer Quincy Jones. This is a film that has more lurking beneath the surface than one expects from a heist thriller. It's filled with unexpected moments and irony and invites closer inspection of it's themes. However, it's also a rather downbeat affair and will likely not suit everyone's tastes. The biggest surprise is Balsam. A reliably normal character actor in multitudinous films, here he is a flaming, lascivious queen with a riotous wig (borrowed from the "Diamonds Are Forever" set?) and heavily mascara-ed eyelashes. He provides the bulk of the film's humor through his committed, yet outre performance. It takes some getting used to, but in the end, he has truly created a memorable persona. Cannon exists mainly to slough around in flimsy outfits and bed down with Connery. Meeker shows up near the end to give a bizarre, yet strangely entertaining performance as a police chief (though his approach doesn't always gel with the material.) "Saturday Night Live" fans will be stunned to find Morris in a straight part as a SWAT member. It's interesting to see where technology was in 1971 and to see the attitudes and preconceptions of what people thought gays were (Balsam is not the only one in the movie.) The film does make effective use of flashback and nonlinear storytelling. It's just lacking that one little spark to make it a classic in the same league as several others from this genre.

It's taken me a while to track down a copy of 'The Anderson Tapes', but I'm sure glad I did. I was knocked out by this consistently interesting caper movie. Sean Connery, post-Bond, pre-Zardoz, plays Duke Anderson, a recently released criminal who decides to rob the luxury apartment block his high class hooker girlfriend (Dyan Cannon) resides in. He assembles a team which includes "The Kid" (an unbelievably young and cool Christopher Walken in his first major movie role), his flamboyant art loving buddy Tommy ('Psycho's Martin Balsam camping it up outrageously), the super cool Everson (Garrett Morris), and (against his will) Mafia goon Socks (Val Avery). Duke however doesn't realize that he, and just about everyone else involved in the plan, are under surveillance by a multitude of government agencies who are following their every move. 'The Anderson Tapes' is an entertaining and tough little thriller full of humour and originality, and with an almost 'Conversation'-like feel to it - a movie it predated by three years incidentally. While nowhere near as well known as Sidney Lumet's other Seventies crime dramas 'Serpico' and 'Dog Day Afternoon' it is equally as good. An extremely underrated movie that deserves a lot more attention.

There's The Maltese Falcon and this. I'm not giving away too much with that. I'll just say The Anderson tapes themselves serve absolutely no purpose in this movie. Having all the surveillance (and Connery's title character Duke Anderson isn't even the intended target for the surveillance) serves only to pad out the film abd try to make it more interesting from a cinematic standpoint but it's still just a caper movie.

Without the tapes subplot and the odious Quincy Jones score, this movie would be better. It would be a fairly faithful throwback to 1940s Film Noir movies except modernized for the 70s. You sort of feel sorry for the crooks at times. That's what makes me think of John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle

Alan King is pretty good as the pseudo head of the crime family who finances the robbery at a price. Martin Balsam definitely plays against type in this as the decorator who cases the building they plan to rob. Christopher Walken makes his debut as an adult actor (used to be a child actor in the early 50s) as one of the robbers. Garrett Morris plays one of the cops. Ralph Meeker plays his superior. Character actor Val Avery plays one of the robbers and he is excellent in this but I've seen better work by Dyan Cannon, Sean Connery and Sidney Lumet elsewhere even if the score or title were better . Good to see once but not memorable.

Beautifully made caper film by one of the best in his prime, Sydney Lumet. The pacing and balance may be the true art of the film. Premise is a bit far fetched: recently released con (Sean Connery) plans extravagant heist of entire Manhattan apartment building using mob financing. The hitch is that most everywhere he goes during his planning, electronic surveillance follows from varied and sundry sources.

A young Chris Walken heads a superb support group including Dyan Cannon. Martin Balsam is absolutely spectacular as the femme antique dealer.

Slightly dated, but never tired, the story progresses like a time bomb countdown.

Often imitated, rarely duplicated.