Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

classicalsteve Ryan O'Neil is one of those actors who, given the right part, can hit it out of the ballpark. Like his con artist character in "Paper Moon", the thief is outwardly a comely young man, a charmer, even a gentleman. That's what thieves are supposed to be. They don't kill people, or use violence (at least these types of thieves never do in the movies!). They have wit, humor, and even a little humility, which is what makes their underlying darker side so much more terrifying, enigmatic, and also intriguing. These thieves don't hold up the corner liquor shops in the seedy side of Brooklyn or ransack cheap apartments in New Jersey. They procure their desired objects from jewelry shops in the upper-crust of downtown Manhattan or the large brick houses of the Brookline area of Boston. This is the only kind of thief O'Neal could swing at with a chance of hitting a homer, and he does.Webster (O'Neal) is nicknamed "the Chess Burglar" as he begins playing a hypothetical chess game with the police, leaving a chess piece and a move with every robbery. He mainly heists jewels from people who don't really need them, like a modern-day Robin Hood. He does his game, both the robbing and the chess, with deft finesse and surgical precision. The police, unable to figure out who their thief really is, at one point hire a professional chess master to oppose the nameless thief-artist to try and create a profile of him based on his moves. At one point, even the chess master comes to his wits end trying to deal with the chess burglar. You may find that a chess master and cunning thief have more in common than you might have expected...This is a thoroughly enjoyable movie and certainly one of O'Neal's best performances. (I always thought O'Neal would have been perfect as "The Great Gatsby".) This movie deserves DVD treatment, considering many god-awful Hollywood offerings have been released from this era. (I mean, are there people who would actually buy a copy of Airport 1975 or "The Towering Inferno"?) This is a highly intelligent and yet simultaneously quite entertaining film that does exactly what it wants to do, with enough twists and turns that do not foreshadow a very interesting and unexpected ending. And the script was by Walter Hill who made a career of raising lowlifes to the big screen. Please vote for this movie for DVD release.

dphelan-1 I have loved this movies for years and wish it were on DVD. Ryan O'Neal gives his career best performance as the amateur thief who decides that this way of life is more exciting than what he did before. The Houston location is interesting and the capers themselves are hair-raising. The addition of the chess motif and the relationship between Warren Oates and O'Neal was almost touching. The ending makes you see how much the O'Neal character liked the detective played by Oates.The film also contains one of my favorite lines of dialog as well. When Bissett asks O'Neal what it is like to rob a house, he answers :" It's like a heart attack with a lot of fear thrown in"

thomasdosborneii For some reason, I very much love "heist" movies, perhaps because I would never steal anything in my life and I guess opposites attract. While I don't quite like this one as well as I love the Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway "Thomas Crown Affair," another heist movie with great style from the 70s, the marvelous Henry Mancini soundtrack and the involvement of Ryan O'Neil, Jacqueline Bisset, and Warren Oates make this one a winner in my view. All those reviewers who declared the movie "dated" or "slow" are revealing their MTV-generation mind-rot, where if each frame doesn't flicker by in a quarter second or if the film isn't loaded with computer graphics or special effects, they get bored, because I really don't know what they are talking about--the movie moves along just fine for an adult. It seems that most of the action in the movie, and particularly each robbery, is practically a dance which is fluidly paired with the Mancini music. This is set up almost at the very beginning when the thief is perfecting his lock-picking, safe-cracking, and breaking-and-entering techniques, and it never lets up from there. I suppose, though, that if you don't like Henry Mancini, this movie is not for you.O'Neal demonstrates here his skills for comedy that he had put to even better use in the absolutely hilarious "What's Up Doc" with Barbra Streisand and Madeline Kahn (possibly the funniest movie ever made), also sharing with this movie cast members Austin Pendleton and Michael Murphy. Whereas O'Neal succeeds here with his charm and definite good looks, and he is clearly a good match for the beautiful, somewhat rebellious and "alternative" Jaqueline Bisset, the best pairing is probably the "cat and mouse" interaction with insurance investigator Warren Oates. This, too, is psychologically another example of "opposites attract," as despite being on nearly opposite poles, the two form a kind of mutual bond. Like prison guard and prisoner, they exist in the same realm of life, I guess.I also enjoyed O'Neal's two partners in crime, the nervous-but-excited fence played by Ned Beatty and his humorous boxer sidekick, played by Gregory Sierra.It was fun to see the early mainframe computer technology shown in the film (current at the time the film was made), which is what computers WERE when I started my adult working life (and which it seems they are going back to with all the servers and workstations, now). And I appreciated seeing the Houston setting, not often shown in films. As America's oil capital, Houston's prosperity rises and falls with the energy cycles and probably at the time the film was made, Houston was at one of its prosperity peaks. The beautiful mansions of the Texan oil rich (who aren't at all shy about spending their wealth on jewelry, art, and other luxury goods) quite reasonably make an attractive target for a thief.Thanks to video, I've been able to watch this movie many, many times, much in the same way that I might watch a music video--for the interaction of music and action, although in a more languid and less frenetic way. Not slow, not dated, but very much fun and quite beautiful and enjoyable.

herbqedi Webster McGee (superbly realized by Ryan O'Neal) is bored into stupor by his career and life, so much so that his wife (Jill Clayburgh, sparkling in a minor but memorable appearance) left him, and he has come to agree with her for doing so. He also has decided that what all work, all financial endeavors, and all life comes down to is -- thievery. He decides to be true to himself and his newfound convictions and to become "an honest thief." To set his plan into action, he must find and control an unwilling accomplice (terrific performance by Charles Cioffi), and find two cohorts to dispose of the merchandise (hilariously sanctimonious Ned Beatty and street-not-so-wise Gregory Sierra) for profit. That's the premise, and Yorkin adds some incongruous bits along the way for spice and fun. He seduces and is seduced by Jacqueline Bisset, and meets a man who is almost his match in insurance investigator Dave Riley (Warren Oates -- a multifaceted and brilliant performance). Austin Pendelton has an off-the-wall role for comic relief that's perhaps a bit too silly for the otherwise sophisticated quasi-European anti-establishment satirical tone taken by the rest of the movie's tone. But, you have to allow Bud Yorkin one of these, don't you? There's also a fun car chase (sequence perhaps directed by co-writer and later action-director Walter Hill??), and one more ironic twist. The second half of the movie is dominated by the engaging cat-and-mouse game between McGee and Riley.I have now watched this movie three times and find it more enjoyable each time. The imagery in the first-third slows the pace a bit, but stick with it, and I think you will be well rewarded.