Grand Slam

Enjoyable heist film, tightly put together and with nice wide-angle photography of the exotic locations. It veers into surprising dark territory, and surprises you to the end.

I do love heist movies, and this is about as pure as it gets. Not a moment is wasted on anything not related to the caper. The meticulous planning, careful execution, the aftermath... and a witty little denouement. It does follow a formula, but does it beautifully, with a lot of clever details and tense near-misses. There are some minor flaws, nothing earth-shattering, just brief take-you-out-of-the-moment things. However, there's also some great touches, and a fun, eccentric Morricone score.

I admit I rented this movie just because I like the Ennio Morricone score so much. The movie itself is ridiculous, though at least it keeps things light and doesn't pretend not to be silly (the early scene in which Edward G. Robinson browses his friends card catalog file of underworld types is silliness par excellence).