Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7919 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-10-27
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 106 minutes

Synopsis
Comedy veteran Walter Matthau stars as the eponymous small-time bank robber in a rare return to the kind of straight roles he played at the start of his career. After he and his younger partner, Harman Sullivan (Andrew Robinson), take down a small bank in Tres Cruces, New Mexico, Charley realizes that the $750,000 the bank turned over is very likely mob money. The sticky-fingered Harman wants to keep the money, and, although Charley warns him that the mob will soon be on their tail, the crooks opt for escape. Meanwhile, Molly (Joe Don Baker), a ruthlessly Terminator-like hit man, is in close pursuit of the thieves, wreaking destruction on everything in his path. Police dectective Mr. Garfinkle (Norman Fell), less frightening, but no less persistent, is also on their trail. The cagey bank robber realizes he'll need a phony visa to get out of the country but must pay heavy coin to knowing photographer Jewel Everett (Sheree North) to do the dirty work. Thanks to Matthau's sardonic performance and some tasty dialogue from veteran scripters Dean Riesner and Howard A. Rodman, this well-paced, suspenseful caper film, laden with patented Don Siegel violence, is an extremely enjoyable experience.

Customer Reviews

WIDESCREEN!
Unlike the Region 1 release this is a terrific widescreen transfer of this great Don Siegel thriller.

Outstanding little known gem
What really makes this film a joy to watch is Don Siegel's ability as a story teller. He has an uncanny ability to avoid the pitfalls of less professional directors. He is not trying to change the world, or blow your mind with amazement, instead he completely understands the scope of his project and presents the material in a simple streamlined mannor, completely uncluttered of any pretentious notion of trying to make the ultimate sprawling epic.

Nothing is overtly dramatised here, there are no soppy Spielbergian moments, no grandiose speaches, no orchestra swells. He knew this was pure entertainment and let it play for exactly what it is. It is this approach that has not only held this film in relative obscurity through the years, but also makes it a great hidden gem worthy of a prime spot in your DVD collection.
8/10

Walter Matthau's Charley Varrick is a bank robber to bet on. But avoid Joe Don Baker's Molly
Says the man looking at the business card, "'Charley Varrick, Last of the Independents.' I like that. Has a ring of finality." The man is Molly, a mob enforcer for special projects. You don't want to let him into your trailer. Charley Varrick will meet him when the small-time robbery Charley sets up at the Tres Cruces branch of Western Fidelity Bank goes really, really wrong.

Varrick (Walter Matthau) expected to clear maybe $20,000 or $30,000 from the heist. Instead, his wife, Nadine, waiting in the getaway car, shoots two cops, gets shot herself, and one of Charley's two associates gets killed. Charley, finally back at the trailer park and now a widow, is left with young, dumb Harmon Sullivan (Andrew Robinson) and exactly $765,118 in two big bags. When a newscast reports that the bank manager says only $2,000 was stolen, Charley wishes he'd stayed with stunt flying and crop dusting. The bank was mob controlled and all that cash was about to be sent out of the country for a good washing. Charley knows the cops are after him; now he knows the mob will be, too. They'll want their money back. Just as important, they're going to want to set an example.

Charley Varrick, for all its length (nearly two hours) and for all the queasiness of a ragged Walter Matthau boxing the compass on a round bed with a well-built mob babe, is one fine movie. The plot is so ingenious, the script so smart, the direction so tight, that all the cast members, as good as they are, could be replaced except for Matthau and Joe Don Baker as Molly and not a beat would be skipped.

Charley Varrick the movie comes down to a contest between Charley's sly-like-a-fox, laconic ingenuity and Molly's brutally direct approach to making love, repossessing a car or solving problems. Molly is a big man with a bland face, a nice smile, and who has serious anti-social issues. He smiles, but expect the worst from him if you're a black, a woman, in a wheelchair or the object of his contract. Walter Matthau, with his sagging face, con man personality and his shrewdness, is the heart of the movie, but Joe Don Baker makes you flinch with dreadful anticipation every time Molly comes on screen. Without these two powerful actors, Charley Varrick would have been a clever, amusing heist-and-chase movie. With the two of them, Charley Varrick is a classic.

Charley Varrick, along with The Laughing Policeman (1973) and Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) make up a sort of crime trifecta for Matthau. The Laughing Policeman is a good story although, in my opinion, it hasn't aged well. Pelham is just about as hard-edged as it was when it was released. Just as Charley Varrick benefits immensely from Joe Don Baker's Molly, Pelham benefits from Robert Shaw's utterly ruthless and dominating villain, code-named Blue.

Keep an eye out for William Schallert who plays Sheriff Bill Horton. I've always liked Schallert. He usually played smart and honorable guys, sometimes judges or doctors or just friends. He played a good friend of Walter Matthau's small town lawyer, Harmon Cobb, in the well-made TV mystery drama, Incident (1990). Cobb defends a German prisoner of war against a murder charge during WWII. It's an effective, tidy teleplay.