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Sean Connery plans the perfect crime under the noses of the government in The Anderson Tapes |
Director: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Sean Connery (John “Duke” Anderson), Dyan Cannon
(Ingrid Everleigh), Martin Balsam (Tommy Haskins), Ralph Meeker (Captain
Delaney), Alan King (Pat Angelo), Christopher Walken (The Kid), Val Avery (“Socks”
Parelli), Dick Anthony Williams (Edward Spencer), Garrett Morris (Everson),
Stan Gottleib (“Pop”)
Everywhere we go now we kind of know that we are being
watched. There are cameras everywhere. Satellite links build into our cars.
Heck we all carry everywhere we go a portable tracking and recording device
that can be listened into. So the idea of surveillance being ever present
wouldn’t be a surprise to us. But in 1971, the idea that the government could
be listening all the time, at any time was something that couldn’t cross
anyone’s mind.
It certainly doesn’t occur to John “Duke” Anderson (Sean
Connery) just out of chokey after a ten year stretch. He’s back into a world he
hardly understands, but it doesn’t take longer than five minutes in the swanky
apartment block of his girlfriend Ingrid (Dyan Cannon) for him to case the
joint and plan to do it over – all the apartments at once. Putting a crew
together, Duke plans to clean out all the whole block of all its valuable
property in one go, with financial backing from the Mafia (who owe him for
unspecified reasons). Problem is, Duke’s entire plan is being recorded and
monitored by different government agencies from top to bottom who – even if
they aren’t speaking to each other – are in position to wreck his plans the
instant anyone puts the clues together…
The Anderson Tapes
is part crime thriller, part black comedy caper. It generally plays it pretty
light – with flashes of violence or danger – and throws in some satire on the
surveillance age. The tapes in question are different levels of surveillance at
every location Duke seems to stop at. His time in the apartment is recorded by
a PI following his girlfriend. The feds bugging his mafia contacts. Most of his
criminal gang are being watched by the cops. All this recording creates a load
of trees which block the view of the forest. Not one of these agencies thinks
about joining up their thinking, meaning the actual robbery comes as a complete
surprise to all of them. It’s a neat satirical mark on the incompetence of
administrative led organisations – when the robbery is finally being reported
by a ham radio operator, the news almost doesn’t get through because of a
refusal by the 911 operator to transfer a call without an agreement on who will
pay the charges for the call.
In all this surveillance Duke is like a romantic hangover
from a by-gone time. As played by Sean Connery he’s a romantic figure, like
some sort of working-class Raffles, living by the principles of a gentleman
thief. He abhors violence, gets on well with all races and creeds, respects his
victims and protects them (so long as they don’t get in his way) and runs
operations designed to be clean, quick and painless. He justifies his thievery
with talk of how most of the property he nicks is just sitting pointlessly in
safes, that the insurance will pay out and that in a way he’s giving a bit of
excitement to bored middle-class people. Connery is rather good in this role,
channelling this rogueishness and expertly maintaining Lumet’s light tone.
Lumet’s direction is competent, professional and assured.
Lumet did not hold the film in high regard – it was one he did “for the money”
– but he expertly constructs the film, keeps it tight and brings more than
enough intriguing directorial flourishes to it. The action frequently pauses in
the criminals conversation for a jump cut to the feds listening to the
recordings, having paused the recordings themselves (the paused action even
uses voiceover from the feds asking for confirmation of who they are listening
to). Later, Lumet uses a similar device in the robbery interjecting flash
forwards to the people in the apartment bloc being interviewed on site by the
police, commenting on events we have often just seen while the aftermath plays
out behind them, that throws in plenty of narrative curve balls and misdirects
as the action pans out.
The film is dated in places. Quincy Jones’ score often uses
a jarring series of electronic beeps that are meant to echo the surveillance of
the piece, but actually sounds impossibly dated and jarring. An opening
monologue of Connery on the thrill of safe cracking uncomfortably sounds like
he is comparing it to non-consensual sex, Martin Balsam’s gang member is an
impossibly limp-wristed antiques expert (although he is immediately believable
as someone who wouldn’t be questioned surveying apartments for architectural
improvements while he is actually casing the joint). There are other moments –
but the film gets by because it never leans too hard on any of these attitudes.
Indeed the apartment concierge, is depicted as inflatteringly racist and
homophobic, in stark contrast to the multi-ethnic, un-prejudiced gang carrying
out the robbery.
The Anderson Tapes
is an enjoyable, is very 1970s, piece of work that has more than enough to
entertain you. It has a clever structure and makes some sound points on
surveillance which probably make it more relevant today than it even was then.
Connery is very good in the lead role and there is some excellent support
(Christopher Walken is strikingly charismatic in one of his first roles). It’s
not in the first rank of its director’s film, but it’s still a very fine caper
thriller.
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