The Score


I'm a massive fan of escape movies and a massive fan of bank job and getaway movies. I'm also a massive Edward Norton fan and I used to collect De Niro videos back in the late eighties and early nineties. So there are no prizes for guessing that I loved this movie and the actors in it.

I like a movie that has plenty of twists and turns and gets you thinking without trying to be overly clever. I think if a movie allows a viewer to think he has worked it out then they have usually done something right, but it is also nice to have some pleasant surprises.

The movie also starred Angela Bassett and will go down in the movie history annals as being Marlon Brando's last ever appearance in a movie. I'll talk more about that later on in the review.

The Score was directed by Frank Oz who you will all know from his appearances as Fozzy Bear in the Muppets. Well, I say appearance but of course we never saw him. He also created Fozzy Bear along with Miss Piggy. He has also directed many movies including 'Little Shop of Horrors' and 'The Stepford Wives' and acted in over twenty.

Robert De Niro plays Nick wells a professional safe cracker who decides to call it a day and go straight after almost getting caught on the job. Angela Bassett plays his long suffering partner and she is delighted when he decides to stop. They both have dreams for the Jazz club he owns and now they'll have a chance to put those dreams into motion. Marlon Brando, who plays Max, offers De Niro one last job and it is such a big job with such a massive pay-off that he can't turn it down. Max introduces Nick to Jack Teller, played by Ed Norton. The job Max has in mind involves stealing a solid gold sceptre from a customs house. Jack has first-hand knowledge of the building and its plans after working for months as a disabled janitor named Brian and working himself into the guard's confidence. The plan is for Nick to go underneath the building via the sewers while Jack in his guise as Brian works on the cameras and alarms. Things don't go exactly as they planned.
Ed Norton is brilliant in this movie and again gives his Jekyll and Hyde performance in a way that only he can manage. When he is acting as Brian, you really feel that he is mentally challenged and he really pulls it off. When he is Jack he has that brash, foolhardy cockiness that he plays so well in many movies and many different roles. He is such a versatile actor and this movie was a joy for me as it brought me full circle from the man I used to collect, De Niro who is possibly one of the greatest method actors of the past fifty years to the man I collect now in Norton, who is destined to go down as one of the greatest and is already one of the best of his generation.

De Niro made this film on the back-end of his eighties and nineties heyday and before he started taking on lighter roles like 'Rocky and Bullwinkle' and 'Meet the Parents'. He still has that grit and that uncanny way of saying without speaking. That was the reason the slow motion shot in 'Goodfellas' worked so well, because De Niro has that knack of acting without acting at times and the camera picks it up. Some of the scenes with Norton are brilliant and his scenes with Bassett are well played out and full of tension.

Angela Bassett for her part does a good job and fits in with the movie well as De Niro's partner. The surprise element for me was Brando as I have never really been a fan but he played the part well although he wasn't in it for that long. It is quite fitting that his last movie was acted amongst such great actors.
Overall I really enjoyed the movie and there is a lot of action and edge of your seat stuff in the form of will they get caught or won't they.

Oz's direction is crisp and no nonsense and the cinematography is top notch. The score, that's the soundtrack not the movie itself, fits the whole thing rather nicely. I watched this back not long ago and it all does rather fit together well and is a compact effort from start to finish.

It may not appeal to everyone but if it is a good old bank job getaway type movie you after then you won't be disappointed and I say that even though I am biased due to the actors in it.

The standard DVD contains a trailer and cast biographies and the special edition contains interviews and commentary.

A good old fashioned run of the mill movie that is good to watch on a Sunday afternoon.

©Lee Billingham