The Brink's Job

In 1938 Boston, petty criminal Tony Pino (Peter Falk) and his robbery gang get caught. In 1944, his friend Joe McGinnis (Peter Boyle) picks him up after getting released from prison. He rejoins wife Mary (Gena Rowlands). He gets a new crew which includes idiot brother-in-law Vinnie (Allen Garfield), disturbed war veteran Specs O'Keefe (Warren Oates), and Jazz Maffie (Paul Sorvino). The bumbling crew struggles to rob a candy factory. Tony passes by Brink's and is enticed by the cash. He talks into the warehouse and copies a key. The crew starts stealing from the trucks but no one seems to catch on. They realize the careless security and robs the vault for $1 million. The large amount and notoriety draws in J. Edgar Hoover (Sheldon Leonard).

It's a fine period heist movie from William Friedkin. There's a bit of fun. This is not a high functioning crew. It could easily turn into a more slapstick comedy than it already is. There are some great idiocy like Specs suggesting blasting the vault with a bazooka. There are bits and pieces of goodness but I'm less enamored with the last section. It becomes a muddle as the crew is gathered up. The action is lost and I can't figure out each character. Normally, the action would go bigger into the climax. I do have respect for going the other way including Mary casually making dinner for the cops.

I've been trying to pick up a VHS of this flick for 2 years and finally won it on an auction. It was on AMC a few years back and I caught about 30 minutes of it. I was so intrigued that I started to look for a chance to buy it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, a great cast with a young Peter Falk leading the way. Peter Boyle was realistic in his portrayal of the money launderer. Used VHS tapes are out there and although this robbery occurred in the 50's there is enough suspense and a ton of surprises for you. Sometimes a true story beats the best fiction a writer can come up with.

After the dismal box office and critical reception of SORCERER (1977), William Friedkin went for a change of pace with this light-hearted piece which, however, proved that his previous misstep with was no fluke: in fact, his career never really picked up after that costly bit of self-indulgence (even so, I’ve only just acquired the director’s fair update of his own THE FRENCH CONNECTION [1971], namely TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. [1985])!

Anyway, this concerns – in a somewhat uneasy comedic vein – the famous January 1950 robbery from the Boston branch of the titular depository of payrolls destined to various key firms; incidentally, the same events had previously been depicted in the 1976 TV-movie BRINKS: THE GREAT ROBBERY. Its coup is in the meticulous period reconstruction (which earned production designer Dean Tavoularis, already responsible for BONNIE AND CLYDE [1967] and “The Godfather” films among others, an Oscar nod) – Friedkin himself had earlier demonstrated his prowess in this area with another comedy about an equally notorious incident i.e THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY’S (1968).

Interestingly, too, the cast of daring crooks here comprises several reliable character actors of the era – Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Paul Sorvino and Warren Oates; 1940s Hollywood veteran Sheldon Leonard turns up towards the end as J. Edgar Hoover(!), but Gena Rowlands is wasted in the role of Falk’s wife. The comedy revolves around Falk and Garfield’s bumbling duo – the former is the mastermind and the other his often resentful relative/underling. After a number of ‘jobs’ go wrong (with Falk even doing a 6-year stretch in jail) or the ‘funds’ don’t last (one amusing sequence has them following a payroll van around and lifting a handful of money bags with every stop it makes – since the officer left to ostensibly guard them is apparently in continuous slumber!), they set their mind on robbing the Brink’s warehouse.

After studying the place from the outside (such as time of arrival and departure of the various employees, and their toilet habits!), Falk manages to get inside the building to get an idea of how it’s set-up; with the place left unguarded during the night, he’s able to break in with relative ease to look for possible alarm systems and determine the model of the safe – the former is an ancient device, but the latter is up-to-date and unassailable. Oates, a war veteran, proposes to dent its surface with a bazooka fired from the roof of the opposite building(!) – however, saner heads prevail and they organize a good old-fashioned stick-up (complete with the gang putting on grotesque masks). Eventually, the sum they make off with is over $1.5 million – which, at the inflation rate of the day, was considered the biggest haul in U.S. history…thus bringing the F.B.I. in on the case.

I’m not familiar with the facts of the real case but, here, the denouement is rather unexciting as Oates is brought to justice for another (minor) theft and, since he has a very sick sister and can’t possibly make the whole jail-term, he spills the beans on The Brink’s Job! Still, the gang apparently had the last laugh as, in spite of Hoover’s promises, a very small percentage of the money was retrieved over the years (as per the postscript) – and, following the lapse of their individual sentences, one assumes each picked up where they had left off… Ultimately, the film is O.K. (though curiously undistinguished among the spate of heist pictures made during this cynical era) – and especially disappointing given the intriguing subject matter and the welter of talent involved (including a script by THE WILD BUNCH [1969]’s Walon Green).

William Friedkin directs this period heist black comedy based on true facts and it is very different from the rest of his output.

Peter Falks plays Tony Pino a small time Boston petty crook. Even after being released from jail he and his bumbling gang which includes brother in law Vinnie (Allen Garfield) struggle to pull off a decent job such as robbing a bubble gum factory.

Pino notices that the local Brink's warehouse has lax security. When he cases the joint he notices that Brink's is too stingy to spend money in having a decent security system and he can just walk in. Their promotion of having an impregnable fortress is just baloney.

In 1950 Pino and his men stole over a million dollars in cash. FBI director J Edgar Hoover (Sheldon Leonard) took a personal interest in the robbery thinking it was the work of communists. He spent $25 million to try to apprehend the gang.

Friedkin displays a lightness of touch but the script has paper thin characters. The comedy and the heist needed more emphasis such as in the Italian film Persons Unknown, later remade by Louis Malle as Crackers. The casting of Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands harks back to the John Cassavetes dramas.

A group of small-time crooks in Boston successfully rob millions of dollars from an inept and complacent security firm, only to get their collars felt.

This film's script is based on real-life events in 1950 and many hundreds of hours of interviews with surviving members of the gang. The film is played part action, part for laughs.

The FBI were convinced that this was the work of organised crime and/or communists, spent a fortune trying to crack the case, and only ever retrieved a small fraction of the loot. Some of the local population treated the crooks as folk heroes, which the authorities were not at all keen on.

The film is basically not at all bad but it is slightly unevenly paced and of course rather slow by modern standards, being (for a movie) fairly realistic. Also whilst Falk is a pretty good actor rather than a one-trick pony , it is difficult to look past Lt Columbo and see him as a small time crook here.

So overall with caveats (I.e. bearing in mind what the film is about and how it is made), I give this 7/10.