The Silent Partner [Import]

Elliot Gould plays a timid bank clerk who turns into a calculating thief when he stumbles across the perfect scheme to defraud his bank of money. Christopher Plummer takes on the unusual role of playing a ruthless bank robber and killer. Both men do superb jobs in their roles.

This movie takes an unusual twist on a bank robbery story with an ingenius plot that keeps twisting and turning and keeps you guessing right to the end. This is film-making at its best: there are no special effects and no big shoot-outs or car chases but the suspense and tension and thrills keep building and building until the very last second. The directing, editing, script and score are excellent.

It is interesting to see a very-young John Candy in a non-comedy role as a bank teller. I even think Tom Jacobek, the Toronto politician, plays a cameo role in several of the scenes.

Shot in and around Toronto neighbourhoods and identified as Toronto (not pretending to be an American city), there are many scenes inside the Eaton Centre, the TTC subway, and the "beaches" and is a showcase of the city in the 1970's. You can get a rare glimpse of the old TTC streetcars as well as seeing what the old Canadian currency looked like including one dollar bills, two dollar bills and the old-style 10's, 20's, 50's, 100's.

Also notice the metaphor of the fish tank. Throughout the film, there are subtle comparisons between the lives of the fish and the bank tellers. Near the end, both the fish tank, and the panes of glass at the bank are smashed setting the inhabitants free.

Overall, this is an excellent suspense thriller that in my opinion is far more entertaining than the big-budget Batman-Dark Knight film (which is essentially a bank-robbery film too), but on a fraction of the budget and special effects. It makes you nostaligic for the good old days of film-making when plot meant more than over-priced comic book superheroes.

Christopher Plummer is cold bloodedly menacing, although he would be good just reading the phone book. However, he meets his match in Elliott Gould, who's trusted mild mannered bank clerk matures quickly over the course of the movie into a cool headed schemer who turns the situation to his own advantage. Moments of excruciating suspense throughout and a clever twist at the end. Great vignette of what was considered cool and hip in the 1970s: clothes, hair, music, smoking pot, sex...
My only criticisms are:
- Even for 1978, the amount of money involved in the robbery seems laughably small
- The DVD cover art is misleading; it's been sexed up to show three guys in suits, one holding an automatic, making it look like a gang heist, when it's really a battle of wits...

the suspence of this movie is good all the time. For an old movie i found it good to watch it more than once.