It's a fine plan for a heist: hit the LA Rams money room during the game, and get away with some well planned confusion. The take is $550,000, and the split is six ways. Until one of their number breaks into Diahann Carroll's apartment, kills her and steals the money. The take was supposed to be in Brown's possession, and the others want their cut. Reducing the number by eliminating Brown will increase the survivors' share. As for LA Police detective Gene Hackman, he mostly wants to catch the murderer. Half a million dollars looks attractive too.
It's based on one of Donald Westlake's Parker novels about heists gone sideways, written under the pseudonym of Richard Stark. He started them out as experiments, by running each sequence as far as it would go, and then asking "What happens now?" He had no idea of what the plot would be. Plot is what happened. He had no idea of who his characters were. Character is revealed by action. And that's what you have here. The books are cold, and the movie is unwarmed by the Los Angeles sun or the heat in a steamroom. Brown isn't even a Black man, he's a man who is Black. With Ernest Borgnine, Julie Harris, Jack Klugman, Warren Oates, James Whitmore, and Donald Sutherland.
It's based on one of Donald Westlake's Parker novels about heists gone sideways, written under the pseudonym of Richard Stark. He started them out as experiments, by running each sequence as far as it would go, and then asking "What happens now?" He had no idea of what the plot would be. Plot is what happened. He had no idea of who his characters were. Character is revealed by action. And that's what you have here. The books are cold, and the movie is unwarmed by the Los Angeles sun or the heat in a steamroom. Brown isn't even a Black man, he's a man who is Black. With Ernest Borgnine, Julie Harris, Jack Klugman, Warren Oates, James Whitmore, and Donald Sutherland.