We open with a priest pulling something lethal from his pants. Don’t worry, it’s only a gun and I’m not sure he’s a priest. He and a cabbie gun down a man building a wall - must have disliked his pointing work. Meanwhile Robert Duvall is getting out of jail having done ‘two and a quarter’ for a firearms charge.
He’s picked up by Karen Black and learns that it was his brother who was killed in the first paragraph. Black goes to a motel with Duvall but he smells a rat and manages to avoid being whacked by ‘the outfit’ - basically the mob. Duvall and his brother had robbed a mafia bank a few years back and the deed is coming back to haunt them.
Not one to go on the defensive Duvall takes the mob on and demands $250k from them to back off. He hits a variety of card games and scams and eventually the mafia agree to pay him off. Of course the money drop is a trap but after escaping with his henchman, Joe Don Baker, Duvall decides to go up against the big boss, Robert Ryan.
Will he get the justice he doesn’t really deserve and who will get out alive?
I enjoyed this straightforward revenge picture that didn’t try to be overly complex, instead relying on some good planning and tense sequences. The near bald Duvall is great as Macklin although he is a bit of a low talker. 'Quiet menace' they’d no doubt call it, but speak up Bob! He was cunning and lethal in a fight, although I have to say ‘The Outfit’ weren’t really at the races; falling for every old disguise and misdirection trick in the book.
Black was OK as the moll, but she and all the female characters fared badly with ‘shut up’ the usual response they earned to every utterance. I liked one trouble making lady, who was a spit for Dee out of ‘Always Sunny’, who offered her charms to Baker and wasn’t impressed at his rejection. Another got a straight right to the chin and Black got a right good slapping for daring to touch Duvall’s pistol - and him just out of the joint too!
You could see this film as inspiration for a lot of features that followed, with Black running down two henchman going straight into ‘Breaking Bad’ and the showdown at the end being seen many times since, in lesser productions.
The film zipped along with several robberies planned and executed in some detail. I thought the ending was a bit pat but at least it proved the old adage of always take a white coat with you on your murder sprees.
Duvall did well to bring some empathy to a scumbag character and you couldn't help but admire his quite determination to gain his flawed version of justice. I probably preferred ‘Charley Varrick’ which tread very similar ground, but there was plenty to like here and you can see why it is still well regarded in a crowded genre.
THE Tag Line : No Hair : Doesn’t Care 76%
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