Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974)

With Peter Fonda’s recent passing, I felt it was time to take a ride with Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), the cult car chase action thriller that was apparently a sleeper hit at the time of release. While it’s promoted like Bonnie & Clyde on the posters with thief Larry (Peter Fonda) on the run […]

Set It Off (1996)

Going through a run of watching classic heist movies and figured it was time to Set It Off (1996). Following a quartet of friends in Los Angeles – all working as janitors with little income and different problems – they decide to rob banks to get out of their collective situation. What surprised me a […]

Day Of The Cobra (1980)

Wading further into the genre of poliziottesco/Eurocrime, Day of the Cobra (1980; Il giorno del Cobra) stars Italian superstar Franco Nero (the original Django himself) as the “Cobra”, a name which is never explained but has a catchy theme song (with the bluesy lyric, “Don’t give a damn – I am the Cobra!”). The movie […]

The Outfit (1973)

While I’ve not read any of the Richard Stark (alias for Donald E. Westlake) novels about Parker, the anti-hero criminal thief with his own code, the character has served several film adaptations, the most acclaimed being Lee Marvin in Point Blank (less so, the recent and boring Statham/J-Lo caper movie, Parker). Another treatment of the […]

Mr. Majestyk (1974)

I re-read the Elmore Leonard novel Mr. Majestyk (1974) for the umpteenth time recently – classic crime pot-boiler with trademark Leonard characters and dialogue. I knew there was a Charles Bronson movie of it, but hadn’t realised that Leonard had written it as a screenplay first then adapted it as a novel. Bronson is the […]