It's unfortunate that with a cast like this that a good majority of the characters are just truly unlikeable and you can't root for them in their scheme to break the Vegas bank no matter how hard they try. Jon Voight, coming off an Oscar win and box office success with "The Champ" took time off to write a script which resulted in this film, co-starring with Ann-Margret and Burt Young in a messy story and a film that is over long and unfunny. Hal Ashby, director of some of the best movies of the 70's, had a huge fiasco with this one, the worst movie of 1982 that was hideous when I first saw it in the theater and which time has not been kind to in my revisiting and attempted reassessment.
I didn't like Voight's character from the beginning, a truly obnoxious person whose narcissism makes him insufferable. Young gets a lot more sympathy from me, but he's playing basically the same character he played in "Rocky", the desperate schlub who ends up in over his head by the bad choice of becoming involved in Voight's scheme. Ann-Margret is secondary to the plot, looking gorgeous, yet her amoral character seems out of step with other roles she's played, lacking the charisma of her amoral mother in "Tommy".
The only person to come out of this unscathed, and actually giving a great performance, is veteran character actor Bert Remsen whose slyness makes him the big winner in this bomb. It takes forever for the film to really get going, starting in New York and working its way from one sin city to another. The number of sleazy characters that pop in and out of the action are endless and just makes this unpleasant to watch. Toss in one of the worst theme songs I've ever heard in a movie and you've got a two hour time waster that would be better spent having my teeth drilled.
I didn't like Voight's character from the beginning, a truly obnoxious person whose narcissism makes him insufferable. Young gets a lot more sympathy from me, but he's playing basically the same character he played in "Rocky", the desperate schlub who ends up in over his head by the bad choice of becoming involved in Voight's scheme. Ann-Margret is secondary to the plot, looking gorgeous, yet her amoral character seems out of step with other roles she's played, lacking the charisma of her amoral mother in "Tommy".
The only person to come out of this unscathed, and actually giving a great performance, is veteran character actor Bert Remsen whose slyness makes him the big winner in this bomb. It takes forever for the film to really get going, starting in New York and working its way from one sin city to another. The number of sleazy characters that pop in and out of the action are endless and just makes this unpleasant to watch. Toss in one of the worst theme songs I've ever heard in a movie and you've got a two hour time waster that would be better spent having my teeth drilled.