Charley Varrick (1973)

Mildly entertaining thriller

Charley Varrick is a crop-duster with a side line in bank robbing, and he and his wife and friend rob a rural bank which happens to contain mafia money. During the robbery the wife kills some policemen and is fatally wounded. A hitman called Molly is set on the trail of Charley.

It's mildly entertaining, although it's hard to care much about Charley and his toothache suffering bank robber friend. Rather than getting treatment for the wife they let her die in the car, and set her on fire to destroy the evidence.

Molly is a thug with a personality, a very scary personality, and the rest of the film is Charley's fight with Molly.

It's a bit difficult to imagine Walter Matthau being as able to seduce women as presented here, the way he beats Molly in the end makes Molly look stupid, where he'd been ahead of Charley and co up to that point. It's also slightly ridiculous looking, I'm not sure whether an aircraft can really be manoeuvered on the ground like that.

It's an OK thriller, but although not many people will warm to Molly, you can't really care much which one of them wins out in the end.

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