Enjoyably trashy 80s crime movie. (52 Pick Up (DVD))

Member Name: tomflint

Product:	52 Pick Up (DVD)
Date:	09/06/09 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The always watchable Roy Scheider

Disadvantages: Needed a bigger budget, not enough action sequences.

This is a review of the MGM DVD released in 2004.

Another of MGM's dvd 'cheapo' range, '52 Pick-Up' is the second of my reviews of film adaptations of Elmore Leonard's novels. The film stars Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret and is directed by John Frankenheimer.

Made in 1986 by the Cannon Film Group, '52 Pick Up' is an enjoyable if slightly cheaply made action thriller. With a director like Frankenheimer, a writer of Leonard's calibre and a good cast, the omens are good. Unfortunately the film did not quite meet my high expectations, but was enjoyable nevertheless.

The story concerns Harry Mitchell [Roy Scheider], a wealthy metal industrialist who appears to be developing some kind of new metal that NASA are interested in because its almost impossible to destroy!, that's not a particularly important plot point though. Harry's wife [Ann-Margret] is a respected local politician about to put herself forward as a councillor for the local area. Despite appearing to have everything; loads of money, a great house, an E-Type Jaguar and a beautiful wife, Harry is having an affair with a young model played by a very young Kelly Preston [Mrs John Travolta]. Two sleazy porn cinema owners and a local hoodlum decide to try and blackmail Mitchell into paying them large sums of money on a yearly basis or they will expose Mitchell's infidelity to his adoring wife, and destroy her career as a politician. Harry isn't about to let this happen and slowly turns the tables on his aggressors.

This was one of the major disappointments for me. He didn't get mad like Michael Caine in 'Get Carter'. No, instead he goes and 'talks' to each of the 3 guys after him to try and convince them that he has no money, even showing one of them his accounts books. This didn't make for a thrilling movie experience and it was only towards the end that Scheider started physically engaging with the bad guys, by which point a lot of viewers would have gone and made a cup of tea. It's odd that a film made by a director such as Frankenheimer, known for his pacy action movies such as 'Ronin' and 'French Connection 2' and interesting stuff like 'The Manchurian Candidate' is here neither pacy or particularly interesting. This is strictly a 'hack' job, collect the money and make a movie.

Another problem is the soundtrack, a blaring synthesizer in a couple of the scenes totally ruining any sort of tension which was being created. Also, and maybe this was just my TV, much of the film seemed to be very dimly lit causing me to squint and in the end turn up the brightness control!. The picture had a washed out look and in some parts looked like an episode of the 'A-Team', not the sort of film quality you would expect from a motion picture, but I think that may have been a problem with many of Golan and Globus's Cannon movies. This seems particularly disappointing because the Cinematographer is Jost Vacano, who did all the work on Paul Verhoevan's action movies like 'Robocop', 'Total Recall' and 'Starship Troopers'. 'Robocop' was made just one year after this and really goes to show what you can achieve with a bigger budget.

The book is regarded as something of a classic in Leonard's vast list of titles so I will reserve judgement on that until reading the book. I think with a director more sympathetic to the story, say a Stephen Soderburgh or Quentin Tarantino, much more could have been made of the film and it might be good to see a remake if one of those two wanted to tackle it.

The performances are fine, with John Glover particularly standing out as the psychotic Alan Raimy, a sleazy pornographer who calls everyone 'sport'. Elmore Leonard's talent for creating interesting villains shows through here, Raimy appears quite easy going and jovial, but is ruthless when it's called for and appears to be unafraid when threatened, managing to talk his way out of situations, thinking on his feet. Ann-Margret looks as stunning as ever, but is given little to do except pout and get called 'sweet cheeks' etc. Kelly Preston's role is very marginal and Roy Scheider is left to carry most of the movie.

Scheider is highly underrated as an actor, and although this is not one of his best performances, he does a good job of portraying Harry Mitchell a businessman who is reluctant to become a man of action but does so out of necessity.

I've realised that this review sounds pretty negative towards the film, but there was much that I enjoyed here. In the spirit of trying to be as objective as possible I've tried to highlight the film's shortcomings as best as I could. If you like movies that are a reflection of the time in which they were produced [this is very '80s'] then you'll enjoy laughing at the huge shoulder pads and tacky neon signs. It doesn't stack up as a great movie but it will pass 1 hour 45 minutes perfectly well.

As with all these cheap MGM titles there are no DVD extras, not even a trailer, just the minimum of language and subtitle options. I got it for about £3 on Amazon, but I couldn't really advise that anyone buy this. A rental or catch it on TV.

Summary: Fans of Cannon films will want to see this.