Loophole (1981)

Best movie of this year hands down!

People are voting emotionally.

Fresh and Exciting

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The whole movie goes well until it reaches its 20 final minutes, when the climax is about to happen. When you think you are going to have a lot of fun and a heck of a surprise, the movie just trolls you like you have never been trolled before. At first, I thought I was on Candy Camera or that I had seen an unofficial edited version of the movie. Unfortunately, it was neither case. It is ridiculous: the movie just ends, like a thunder. Boom: and you got the credits... At first is hard to believe, then you realize that was really it. I do not understand how the other critics do not point the obvious elephant in the room which is the lack of explanation regarding decisions taken by Martin Sheen at the end of the heist (which were a key part of the plot, at that stage of the movie) and how the other guys wrap up their activities... One guy simply dies out of nothing, for no reason, and the director does not even give us the opportunity to understand what took place... He simply appears floating dead in the water... At that moment, you just do not know if things went sour for the group or if they just went sour just for that one character. You also do not know if the poor guy got unlucky due to sabotage or forces of nature. The whole movie, in general, (until its 20 final minutes) is excellent: well produced, interesting, nicely filmed and edited. The last 20 minutes, however, destroy the whole venture and turn it into one of the worst wastes of time in the history of movies. How are people not raged with the meaningless cut in the picture? I searched several reviews to see if someone discussed the drastic unexplained cut, but it made me feel like I was in the Twilight Zone... No one touches the issue. Hahahaha... I have searched several videos in YouTube to make sure I got the version and all of them were like the one I saw, with the incredible cut right in the middle of the climax of the movie. No explanation is offered regarding the most interesting (and expected) part of the movie. It is just as if the money ended and they had to come to an abrupt "abort & shutdown". I visualize the funding people arriving at the studio and saying: "Stop everything right away. Let us go with what we have so far. Thank you, gentlemen, it was a pleasure working with you." A real shame for what could have been a fantastic movie.

This is a very good caper film. The crooks are very professional, and they do not use any forms of violence. Martin Sheen plays a down on his luck architect, drawn into assisting with a large bank heist involving the use of the underground sewer system. The pace of this film is slow, but it keeps the viewers interest. Jonathan Pryce appears in this film in an early role as one of the crooks. Albert Finney is great as the leader of the gang, and Colin Blakly is equally good as his assistant. Susanah York does not have much of a part as Martin Sheens wife. I give this film a nine out of ten. It is definitely worth a look. See it if you are a fan of caper films, see it even if your not a fan of caper films.

Tense, ably constructed thriller is a credit to some strong players and an astute director. Blessed with a clever original work (novel by Robert Pollock), but not such an ingenious screenplay, director John Quested has been able to draw out his movie and squeeze it for a few drops of decent suspense.Albert Finney is perfectly debonair as the Englishman who has a penchant for safe-cracking. Having set his sights rather high for his next job, he employs the services of out of work architect Booker, well played by the young Martin Sheen. Susannah York, Coliin Blakely, Jonathan Pryce and Robert Morley also star.Saturday, January 8, 2000 - Video

Actually, I haven't seen the movie -- but three men in Texas rented this movie and were inspired to re-create the crime in 1984. They held a bank president's wife and daughter hostage in exchange for a ransom of $48,000. Once the money was left in a garbage can, the men used the sewer system to gain access to the false bottom of the garbage can... just like in the movie. However, the FBI arrested one of the men, who ratted out the other two, and they were all tried and convicted. Actually, they almost got away with it -- except the woman they'd counted on to be their alibi "remembered" that they'd been at her house in the afternoon, not the morning. Amusingly, the appellate court judge who heard their appeal started his summary of the case with the line, "The background facts to this case read like a movie script." There's a reason for that, Yer Honor! (If you want to read the case, it's United States v. Moore, 786 F.2d 1308.)