DipitySkillful
an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.
Aneesa Wardle
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Ezmae Chang
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Geoffrey DeLeons
Besides the three main characters reading like the beginning of a bad joke: "A Jew, A Sicilian and a Scot walk into a bar..", this is not a terrible movie.Connery, Hoffman and Broderick all were mis-cast. Connery just does not look like a con man: He looks like the president. Hmmm. Maybe a bad analogy.Why not get three people who look somewhat similar, maybe like Nick Nolte, Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater?So, as I said, this movie is not god-awful. It is rather good, but there are one or two major complaints I have:Why is Broderick's character (Adam) angry at his father (Hoffman as Vito) after Vito turns himself in to the police.., since Adam was the one who got him involved in the first place?!Why does Vito apologize to Adam towards the end, when it should have been the other way around?There is an inconsistency in the plot, too: The judge would have thrown the book at Adam, not his grandfather (Connery as Jessie), once they realized that he was recently a graduate student of molecular biology, and obviously the brains and impetus of the caper. Jessie was infuriatingly arrogant and persuasive, and I was not sorry to see him go to the slammer. Vito should have gone head-to-head against Jessie, in an attempt to save his son from a life of crime and/or punishment. Now THAT would have been worth watching.I'm not even going to ask how the Jew, the Sicilian and the Scot became Irish. McMullen? Anyone?
SnoopyStyle
Jessie (Sean Connery) is an old timer criminal. His son Vito (Dustin Hoffman) is trying to stay straight after a shady past with his father. The grandson Adam (Matthew Broderick) is the golden boy and has the hope for a respectable future. So it's shocking when Adam approaches Jessie with a burglary plan.While I see Dustin Hoffman as Matthew Broderick's father, Sean Connery just doesn't look related to them. It's distracting. Directed by Sidney Lumet, it makes little sense that they drag Vito into this knowing how much he hates the family business for his son. It seems easier to do this behind his back. Once Vito got all the details of the caper, he could easily end this right there and then. Call up the company and tell them their ex-partner's plans. Then tell Jessie and Adam the jig is up. The company doubles and triples security. So it was really stupid for Jessie and Adam to get Vito involved. Vito has to want to do the job, and not just to keep Adam safe. He could do that easily without doing the job. The simplest solution is to have Vito need the money. The caper is really boring. The only interesting thing is Jessie's story when they were buying the supplies. The sad thing is that it showed it show the potential of these actors together. What we have here is great talents being wasted.
ArthurJimbo
If you're a jerk with little sensibility that knows nothing about the process of making movies but likes to pick apart films as if a professional ..then by all means believe the bad reviews here and skip this movie. As many problems as this film may have, god, i sure wish they still made them like this. Real human to human relationships and interactions without dumb sensationalized curve balls thrown at you to ruin the reality and truth of the experience. i thoroughly enjoyed it despite any minor disappointments with the story along the way. decent writing, great acting, and sure handed direction. Don't pay any mind to the many laymen naysayers sittin in their recliner snarfflin down popcorn who assume a position of expertise above these tried, proved and truly talented professionals.
HagenDas
I personally am a huge fan of all three actors, especially Connery, who I really started to get into after his performance in Finding Forrestor. As such, when I noticed this movie at the local rental hut I decided to give it a watch.Unfortunately I simply didn't like the movie. It came off as forced and the story was predictable and while the premise is kind of cute overall it felt way too stretched out. The actors do be themselves and they put out okay performances. But, with predictable story and plot it just didn't do it for me. It had potential, but as I say, sometimes too many A-lists don't provide a good movie.
