The Bank Shot (1974) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by pirateneckbeard ★★½ 6

  Once I heard the opening goofy circus score I knew exactly what I was in for and that was gonna be a ridiculous ride possibly down a hill on a mobile home. This is obviously is not a material to go into for plot or character study and is a grand over the top caper that was designed for a station wagoned family to watch at a drive in and avoid bigger issues at home. So many story elements make no sense but if you only leave the nightlight of power on in your brain or have nostalgia for this you might enjoy it. I did find it funny seeing George C Scott(Walter Ballentine) sporting some Richard Mulligan eyebrows and…

• Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🐝 ★★★½

  The well of 1970s crime films worth a damn will never run dry!

  Never even heard of this one until a couple of weeks ago but I'm glad I did eventually and got to see it because it's a very fun caper movie with one very interesting thing at the centre of it. And that's George C. Scott.

  This just doesn't seem to have been his kind of film *at all*. It's like it was created entirely to piss him off with its daft, broad comedy and the fact that, for some completely unknown reason, he's asked to wear fake bushy eyebrows. That he even accepted the job is absolutely remarkable, and that he didn't clock someone on set even…

• Review by Michael501 📺 ★½

  1974 In Review - July
  #7

  A motley crew of criminals plans to rob a Los Angeles bank that's temporarily located in a mobile home during renovations.

  …and there I was expecting a great hidden gem with George C Scott in this forgotten bank heist film. But it’s another one that’s forgotten for a very good reason. It’s terrible. Even though it’s based on a Donald Westlake it’s far too silly for its own good.
  The story surrounds the theft of a bank. Not a bank robbery, but the actual lifting up of a trailer that is home to a bank in a shopping centre, placed on a flatbed truck and taken into a warehouse where the circus like atmosphere has all the perpetrators trying to get the darn thing open.

• Review by Keith G ★★½

  September 2021 - First Watch Personal Challenge #15

  A middling caper which employs some fairly misplaced zany humour throughout. Devised originally as a sequel to The Hot Rock to reunite Redford and Segal with another of Donald Westlake's novels, instead they employ George C Scott and a pair of comedy eyebrows, Boss Hogg with different comedy moustaches, giggly and charming Joanna Cassidy and a pre Close Encounters Bob Balaban among other reasonably well known faces.
  Boss Hogg visits Scott's character in prison with the proposal of a bank robbery (or as they keep calling it, a shot), he just needs to escape. Escape he does in one of the highlights of the film. Once out and appraised of the plan,…

• Review by Luke Thorne ★★

  Gower Champion’s drama. Fresh from his recent jailbreak, a criminal mastermind (George C. Scott) is already plotting his next bank heist. And this time he’s thinking big… With Robert Balaban.

  Adapted from the novel of the same name by Donald E. Westlake, which was published two years earlier, the story concerns Walter (George C. Scott), a thief, who chooses to pickpocket a bank after it is momentarily located into a mobile home while a new building is being put together.

  George C. Scott gives an okay performance in his role as the pickpocket involved who doesn’t show a great deal of determination in terms of what to do with himself, while Joanna Cassidy is alright as EIeonora, the financer of…

• Review by Gregory Kent ★★★

  1974 Ranked
  Physically Owned Films

  Absolutely pales in comparison to its wonderful source material but not without its charms, Bank Shot is great and bland at the same time. The great parts are all due to Westlake. The plot, the plan, the dialogue are wonderful. Some of this gets ported over, but the problems start with the script adaptation and finish with the direction. For such a unique and quirky story, the film feels just lifeless at times. Some performances seem phoned in or too over the top, and the direction is completely stiff and cold. So much potential, but it just doesn't live up to it. At least that runtime is tight.

• Review by K. Axel ★½

  Not much to say, really. Bank Shot is a comedy about a group of thieves with a crazy plan to steal a bank. Yep, the entire bank. It's not really a crime movie, because none of this makes a lot of sense, but hey, in comedies anything goes, right?

  There might have been a few laughs along the way, I just can't remember them right now. Overall, a pretty forgettable movie that tries too hard.

• Review by Chuck Dowling ★★

  I find it hard to believe that George C. Scott didn’t murder everyone involved in this “zany” heist movie. Seems like the kind of thing that would piss him off. “You want me to wear goofy eyebrows? Grrrr. And you want me to talk with a silly lisp? I’ll kill you.”

• Review by damfino99 ★★½

  A thief breaks out of prison and joins a ragtag group who plan to rob a bank.

  
  Half-hearted farce starring George C. Scott and his eyebrows. At turns shrill and sleepy, it's not lively enough, bawdy enough, or funny enough. I liked the actual bank theft and it was neat to see a young Bob Balaban, but overall it's just kind of tired, with no verbal or visual panache to save it.

  
  1974, ranked

• Review by Murray Ross ★★½ 1

  I've read the book and of course it's way way better than this movie. The movie keeps the bank robbery but changes most of the characters, most of the story, the setting, and most unfortunately the tone of the piece is much different. They went for wacky humour here and it don't work and seems forced. Joanna Cassidy is extremely attractive and has the sexiest laugh in movies, otherwise the cast is forgettable. They made George C. Scott wear large fake eyebrows that look really stupid. It was a little worse than THE HOT ROCK, the other Dortmunder but not Dormunder movie from this period. It needed to get rid of the warden chasing them around and it needed to be a bit longer and fleshed out. What a waste of time and acting talent.

• Review by mina ★★

  George c scott is like if i cast a spell upon a cartoon rhino to become human

• Review by Brian Holt ★★★

  This film is very silly. It also begins with George C. Scott destroying a prison labor camp by driving a dump truck through it, so it obviously rules.