User Reviews

"Loot" is a British comedy based on a Joe Orton play with a dark, funny premise. Young men manage to steal money from a bank vault, attempt to hide it in a coffin that already holds a body, remove the body, and then are stuck attempting to hide both.

Hywel Bennett plays Dennis, one of the young robbers, who lays every woman in sight; Milo O'Shea plays his father; Richard Attenborough is the Inspector on the bank case; and Lee Remick plays a sexy nurse caring for Dennis' mother and looking for a rich man. I confess it took me a while to recognize her. She looks totally different here as a sexy, bombshell blonde, and speaks with an accent.

This is a very '60s film, sort of Carry on Doctor Meets Caper Film, and some of it comes off as a little tired and frantic today. Still, the acting is good, and it is an amusing story. Made even a few years later, it might have been a darker and tighter film.

Er......that's because it is a play. A play PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY. Did I mention it is a well known play in England? It's a rather good play.

You can tell throughout "Loot" that it is trying real hard to be an edgy black comedy. However, it doesn't even compare to the much funnier "Weekend At Bernie's". Why do I compare the two? Because both involve a corpse that moves around a lot.

A couple of young men easily steal a bunch of money from a bank vault. The bank is right next to a funeral parlor and they hide the money in a coffin. Not an empty coffin...one with a body in it. Well, they can't fit all the money into the coffin so they take the body out in order to make room for their stash of cash.

Craziness ensues as the two men try to hide both the money and the corpse from relatives and the police. It seems to go on and on and on. To make things worse, most of the story takes place in a hotel. This probably would've made a more interesting play rather than a movie. 2/10

From his subsequent work, this film comes closest in spirit to the director's best-regarded effort, namely GEORGY GIRL (1966); incredibly enough for such a light-hearted farce, it officially competed at the Cannes Film Festival where it vainly faced such tremendous contenders as THE GO-BETWEEN, DEATH IN VENICE, JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN, TAKING OFF and WALKABOUT – albeit all being released in 1971! The film was also the second play (which, for the record, was staged locally not too long ago) by the controversial if short-lived Joe Orton to be turned into a movie after ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE, released earlier that same year and which – like Stephen Frears' biopic of Orton, PRICK UP YOUR EARS (1987) with Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina – I also own but have yet to watch (the latter on the strength of LOOT itself!).

Anyway, to get back to the film at hand, the central casting is certainly splendid: Richard Attenborough's character may be a caricature but he is undeniably funny (his Scotland Yard Inspector poses as an officer from the water board and whose professed integrity proves as much a sham as his act); Lee Remick is served with a sluttish role (as a go-getting and husband-killing nurse!) that actually takes the actress back to her debut in Elia Kazan's A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957): I do not know how she ended up in Britain just then (being reteamed with Attenborough soon afterwards for the Iris Murdoch adaptation A SEVERED HEAD {1970}), but it is safe to assume that she would never have been involved in anything this crude in Hollywood!; Hywel Bennett was fashionable for a brief period (this, in fact, came towards the end of his heyday) but he is terrific as the delusional – as much about romance as get-rich-quick schemes – morgue attendant who conducts his escapades inside a hearse!; Roy Holder's name was unknown to me but he is delightful as the effeminate half of the bungling criminal duo (calling his partner "baby" and who repeatedly gets them convicted because he has a compulsion for telling the truth!) – he also comes up with the film's funniest line, describing his 'close' relationship with his mother's corpse "a Freudian nightmare" (the couple stash the money from a bank robbery in her coffin, while the body is constantly turning up at the most inopportune moments!); Milo O'Shea, another familiar face from this era thanks to his lead role in the movie version of yet one more classic source i.e. James Joyce's ULYSSES (1967), is Holder's flustered father who also drools over Remick (she, in turn, has already eyed him for her next victim!).

Perhaps the wildest idea here is having the criminals undertake the robbery in their birthday suits, so as not leave 'forensic' traces; the comic highlight, then, is a funeral procession that develops into a Keystone Kops-type chase(!), while its brightest touch is the adoption of a song score (not particularly outstanding but still quite nice and loud) to intermittently comment upon the silly-cum-tasteless (albeit rapid-fire) action! Interestingly, the busy finale is a combination of morality (characters owing up to a deed they are innocent of so as to make amends for past mistakes), cynicism (the fact that one cannot even trust authority figures anymore) and a curious 'honor-among-thieves' attitude (Bennett not only gets the girl after all but there is every reason to believe that, with Remick along for the ride, the gang's exploits can only get better and grander still!). By the way, I may be wrong but the film's manic style would seem to have anticipated some of the more stylized episodes in the long-running (and beloved) "Fantozzi" series from Italy!

Got recommended to me by a friend who loves the cars displayed in the film (Triumph Mayflower, car used for the actual heist)... but I must say, I really enjoyed this (seemingly trashy) film: it made up with wit, sharp dialogue and humor for some wicked plot points and awkward slap-stick situations.

It may mystify those hooked on two modern types of comedy film: those which mock the people who don't conform and those which don't ever rise beyond crude vaudeville. Loot sympathises with those who defy and subvert social codes.

The visual aspect of the film got me, as well: the color coding of the set design, character blocking and image compositions are very well done. Very cramped, chaotic, blindingly colorful (enhanced by analogue film and how it filters colors) and brimmed with humor and details. Especially I liked the mansion of the dead mother with its exuberant vintage opulence and vibrant colors. Also the light design is in some scenes just upright genius.

Overall, this gem was LOADS of fun to watch, don't take everything to serious and enjoy the witty dialogues, sometimes SUPER trashy music and exaggerated humor. This is a comedy, made for those who won't take everything to seriously, not even love, death, money and society. It is so dark, it is the brightest thing I've watched in months.

I have seen this play on stage a few times and I must say that it really does work better there. On screen, even though that does allow for greater location flexibility, the story/farce is just a little too undercooked and slapstick here for my liking. It all centres around "Hal" (Roy Holder) and his pal "Dennis" (Hywel Bennett) who have managed to rob a bank. One works in a funeral parlour, so they hit on the idea of stashing their ill-gotten gains in an as yet unoccupied coffin and to lie low for a while. Hot on their trail is the razor-sharp, wandering-handed, "Insp. Truscott" (Richard Attenborough) and as their secret proves difficult to keep, they have to manage the venal expectations of nurse "Fay" (Lee Remick) too. Like so many of it's genre, the humour is very visual and unsophisticated. Again, on stage that exudes a certain adult pantomime feel to it. On screen, that misses much more often than it hits and the pair of them harrying around their cash in the altogether delivering some rather crude, innuendo-ridden, dialogue smacked more of a "Carry On Coffin" type affair. The ending has a twist and that does raise a smile and Milo O'Shea injects a gentle mischief now and again, but that's not enough to carry the rest of this rather crass and mediocre comedy drama.

You can't go wrong when Galton and Simpson adapt an Orton play.

Very black, very funny, and gloriously captures the end of the swinging sixties with the Dennis and Hal's curious way of getting out of a parking ticket.

Roy Holder and Hywel Bennett are perfectly cast as the roguesh but likable main characters, and the supporting players help to carry the film along at a pace.

Ultimately a very enjoyable film, and I can only roll my eyes at the thought of it being compared to Weekend at Bernies - where Loot has black humour, Bernies only has slap stick.

I am rarely tempted to add my own thoughts on any film on IMDb, but when the review for the black farce that is LOOT is compared less than favourably to WEEKEND AT BERNIES in all seriousness then even I feel I have to hitch up the keyboard and redress the situation.

These are two films that are from totally different worlds.

W.A.B's is an American teen romp, the kind that keep the tit and ass count down to get as many 15 year olds in to the multiplex, whilst LOOT is the second to last play written by Joe Orton the darling of the mid sixties theatre scene in London.

Now I have never particularly liked LOOT as a play or as a film, preferring Entertaining Mr Sloane, Berly Reid's performance being worth the price of admission alone, but to compare it to W.A.B.'s is like comparing Hamlet to GHOST because of the presence of a spook in them. But it is easily a far superior film, yes it is a little creaky and the farce is shoe horned in but then that was Orton's style.

LOOT is an example of the sad fag end of the sixties as they misfired to a close.I half expect to see Withnail and I come lurching over the horizon like spectres.

Weekend At Bernies indeed.

see also "Entertaining Mr.Sloane" and the bio pic "Prick Up Your Ears".

I wonder if it would be possible to re-edit this comic gem to eliminate the dreadful backing song(s). Its a play in which the absurdity of conventional attitudes is lampooned and the stirling performances by Milo O'Shea and Attenborough carry it off in the larger style required for big screen. It may mystify those hooked on two modern types of comedy film: those which mock the people who don't conform and those which don't ever rise beyond crude vaudeville. Loot sympathises with those who defy and subvert social codes. It has more in common with the intelligent humour of Harold and Maude or The Producers than with the raucous Eddie Murphy / Chevvy Chase shout-fests. Of course, its difficult. The hard of thinking may have to replay some of the one liners to appreciate the ironies - the targets are attitudes rather than personal blemishes. This is not the world of Joan Rivers either - there is no bitchy 'humour' Orton, while deliberately offending against 'good taste' never sets his sights on anything quite so grubby. The cast are all likable but absurd. Even in Orton's more bitchy plays like 'What the Butler Saw' he doesn't aim at vindictiveness - its the institution he undermines. Loot is satire, not sarcasm. The well paced direction and the crisp, non-self-indulgent acting make this a forgotten treat which should be revived, as it has been for such diverse actors as Leonard Rossiter and Kenneth Williams on stage within living memory.

Simply put, I enjoyed this thoroughly. Although I am not familiar with the play of the same name, or any of the actors aside from Richard Attenborough, or any of the crew, I suspect this only enhanced my enjoyment.

I had only previously seen Richard Attenborough in Jurassic Park and this movie will most certainly make me keen to see him again. I caught this on TV after another movie and I had absolutely no idea what I was watching. It was completely unplanned on my part.

By the end I was laughing obediently at the ensuing hilarity. If you happen to find this movie is to your tastes then the comedy hits hard and uncompromising like a heavy weight boxer. But to be fair I enjoyed The Love Guru and Basic Instinct 2 so I am in no position to comment on 'taste'. I did however enjoy it enough to feel motivated to add my first review for it.