Robert "Duke" Anderson (Sean Connery) is released from prison after a 10-year sentence. His first order of business is to hookup with his old flame, Ingrid (Dyan Cannon). She happens to be living in an upscale building, thanks to her sugar daddy, Werner (Richard Shull). The wealth on display get Duke's larcenous desires sparking and he starts planning a heist. He will need help, including funding and manpower. He checks in with local mob boss, Pat Angelo (Alan King). Of course, Angelo is under surveillance and everything that he and Duke discuss is recorded. Then Duke checks in with the Kid (Christopher Walken), a youth who was released from prison the same day as him. The Kid was in for drugs and is under surveillance, so everything Duke says to him is recorded. This repeats with each new recruit, though a different law enforcement agency is recording. In one case, a private eye is doing the recording. All the pieces of the planned heist have been revealed but no one sees the whole picture. The caper launches with the police in the dark.
The story is told in a non-linear fashion. The various residents of the apartment complex are being interviewed on site as the police carry away bodies on stretchers or attend wounds to the tenants. Clearly, something went seriously wrong with the heist, but what? Were the police in the know? Had they been lying in wait? How many of Duke's men escaped?
The movie is a commentary on the surveillance state that the US had become but also the uselessness of that surveillance. Indeed, even today it always turns out that the various law enforcement agencies - most notably the FBI - have a file on the latest mass shooter or bomber. Is Lumet arguing that surveillance does not help prevent crimes? Maybe.
This was Christopher Walken's first big screen role. The halting cadence that is frequently used to mimic him is absent here. Where this was Walken's first movie, it proved to be Margaret Hamilton's last. She plays one of the tenants here though she is most remembered as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Also of note, Garrett Morris plays a cop. This predates his debut as one of the original SNL cast members in 1975. When I first saw this movie, I expected him to be comic relief rather than a police commando.
This is one of 5 collaborations between Sean Connery and Sidney Lumet. The first was The Hill (1965), which is the best of the bunch. Next was The Offence (1973), which is a bleak, dark film. Then Murder on the Orient Express (1974), where Connery has a small role, and lastly Family Business (1989), which was mediocre.
Just okay.
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