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.
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.