Pocket Money (1972)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Seems like a lot of wasted potential. Paul Newman and Lee Marvin have some decent chemistry between their characters, and Strother Martin and Wayne Rogers are OK. A young Hector Elizondo is a long way from the manager of the Beverly Wilshire Regency. Carole King does nice work on the theme song. The cinematography looks very nice, and the direction is unobtrusive. But there is simply no there there. The film has a plot that seems to be heading somewhere, but just sort of fizzles out with no closure, no climax, and no denouement. I wonder if the source novel was this unsatisfying. It would be really hard to recommend anyone to watch this film.

Pocket Money is a very good and subtle comedy about an ordinary person (Newman) trying hard not to be conned by shady businessmen (played by Strother Martin and Wayne Rogers). Those viewers who are looking for exciting thrills and heroic deeds from the lead characters in such films are missing the point - which seems to be the case with most of the earlier reviews of this film on IMDb.The storyline makes it clear from the start that Newman's character is a hard working modern cowboy trying to make ends meet despite not being blessed with the most sharpest of brains. As a study of such an everyman character, Newman's performance is (in my view) superb. Marvin's performance on the other hand is a little subdued and below par, but still there is a good chemistry between him and Newman in some scenes. The only disappointing aspect of this film is the ending, which seems to leave the story unnecessarily incomplete. However, overall, I would rate this a very good production of an off-beat story.

Asinyne (excuse me if spelling is wrong) says that Paul Newman's character in Pocket Money is basically the same as the one in the much better Hud. Well I'd advice the afore mentioned to go back and watch Hud again. In that classic movie, Newman plays a son of a bitch. In Pocket money he plays a far different type of character. Hud would have despised Jim Kane. It was a well acted acted movie, although I though Marvin overshadowed Newman. Strother Martin who has acted with Paul Newman on numerous occasions was as usual terrific. I liked the movie, but would not consider it one of Newman's best.I think I recall reading somewhere that the stars didn't get on while making this movie.

Rosenberg's film is a contemporary Western comedy about Jim Kane, a good-natured, absurd1y naive, overly honest, bumbling Texas cowboy who owns a pickup truck on its last wheels, is behind in alimony and bank payments, and consistently makes bad bargains… Desperate for money, he goes to Mexico to bring back cattle for a rodeo supplier who's crooked, but whom the ever-trusting Jim likes… He does everything wrong, so his old pal Leonard (Lee Marvin) decides to he1p him… Leonard's the opposite type: a showy, crafty, fancy-pants dude who dreams of getting rich, considers himself an authority on Mexicans and hustles everyone in sight…"Pocket Money" deliberately works against Newman's image; never before has he played such an ingenuous and inept loser… Speaking with a high, nasal draw1, acting like an adolescent, looking constantly bewildered and wearing jeans that make him look bowlegged, he's rather funny if occasionally self-conscious… Marvin's part, with its clear, loud comedy, is showier; Newman mostly behaves quietly and tosses out flip lines… At one point he is more animated, and irately tosses a TV set out of a motel window to get back at a man who's cheated them… It's the new Western's equivalent of the old Western's cathartic showdown at high noon—a perfect, anti-heroic act of a modern anti-hero