After he figures out a robbery is about to take place at his bank, teller Miles Cullen (Elliott Gould) comes up with a scheme to use the robbery as cover for stealing his daily transactions. When the robber demands he pay up, Miles will hand over a small sum and claim that all the money from his transactions was stolen.
After the robber, Arthur Reikle (Christopher Plummer), flees the scene, Miles tells his bosses and the police his story.
He seems to have gotten away with it - the only problem is Arthur, who has figured out Miles' plan and now wants his cut...
At some point in the last decade, I got into Christopher Plummer. It helped that he always seemed to be working - when he would pop up in something like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or the pre-credits of National Treasure, it felt like a nugget of gold. Whatever my thoughts on the movie, there was going to be a baseline of enjoyment because Plummer was there, with a twinkle in his eye.
There is something so unnerving about Plummer’s eyes - there is a focus and a watchfulness that is ever present which always puts me on edge. It always feels like he knows something about whoever he is looking at.
Because of that uh, ocular slyness, I always wanted to see him play villains - I have seen his roles in Star Trek 6 and Up, but nothing has stuck with me. It felt like money was left on the table. A rare exception was All The Money In The World, which is solely powered by his callous, preening portrayal of J. Paul Getty.
When Plummer passed away last year, I saw a lot of talk about this movie. I was lucky enough to catch a screening.
A Hitchcockian thriller about a regular joe who sees an opportunity to color outside the lines and finds himself in big trouble, The Silent Partner does not boast a great suspense sequence but it builds in an unpredictable way that makes it rather exciting.
It also features Plummer in good form as an unscrupulous criminal. But while he is the one unambiguous villain of the piece, Plummer’s role is small. The film is more interested in un-picking the hypocrisy of the law-abiding citizens who make up the rest of the cast.
There is a deep vein of moral relativism to the picture. Not only is Miles using the robber, everyone in his orbit is double-dealing - most of the bank staff seem to be sleeping with each other.
There is an unease about the general domesticity of the film - the way characters look and interact feels intentionally bland. It is as if everyone is wearing masks for when they have to take part in public life.
Gould’s casting adds to the character’s ambiguity - he has a very staccato way of speaking that undermines any sense of sincerity that the character is trying to project.
My one real quibble with the movie was the sound mix.
It was really odd - there were points where the music was mixed louder than the dialogue.
And then there is the ending. The third act makes such a choice that I am not sure how I feel about the movie - but it did make me want to watch it again.
There is a subtext of sexual ambiguity running through the movie that this final sequence brings out into the open in a way that I was simultaneously uneasy about and yet retrospectively it enhanced my enjoyment of the movie leading up to it.
It highlighted how bizarre the tone of the whole piece is. Hitchcock's thrillers are rife with mordant wit, and there is a specific tongue-in-cheek quality to parts of the movie which evokes his work. I am not sure the tone is as consistent as it needs to be, but it makes the movie weirder and more unpredictable than the rest of the movie would have you believe.
A fine thriller with an ingenious premise and some nasty surprises, The Silent Partner is worth a look.
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