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The Hitchcockian game of doubles is prevalent, though the principal basis remains Crichton's The Lavender Hill Mob. Toronto still under construction, Christmastime, a discarded note at the First Bank. The department-store Santa (Christopher Plummer) plans a robbery, the teller (Elliott Gould) figures things out in advance and proceeds to shortchange the crook and make off with the loot himself. "Are you the type people usually underestimate?" So meek he's tasked by the manager with escorting his mistress (Susannah York), the hero reveals a canny side along with "a talent for improvisation." The duped criminal is quite a slick sadist, the menacing blue eyes which stared past the Yuletide drag at the counter now glare through the mail slot on the protagonist's barricaded door. "Shall I come up or will you come down," they meet in the middle. A most ingenious Curtis Hanson screenplay meets Daryl Duke's naturalistic camera, a clockwork construction with a sneaking nastiness. (The Principles of Chess is a stalker's book of choice, tropical fish are collected just so that the aquarium can later receive a severed head.) A jar of jam hides the key to the safety deposit box, the villain bides his time behind bars, the woman in the middle is a Québécoise kitten (Céline Lomez) who turns up at the funeral of the schlub's father. In the background there's a parallel tale about the affable colleague (John Candy) and the blonde trainee in the "Bankers do it with interest" shirt (Gail Dahms), plus a snapshot of a boom town with corpses in its foundations. "It's just a daydream." The climax cites Boetticher's The Killer Is Loose, "another chance" blooms between the escalator and the ambulance. With Michael Kirby, Ken Pogue, Sean Sullivan, Michael Donaghue, Jack Duffy, and Stephen Young.
--- Fernando F. Croce |