Der Millionenraub

In Dollars, clever bank-security guy Warren Beatty teams with a kooky call girl (Goldie Hawn) to steal from three disparate criminals, who have each chosen to store their ill-gotten gains within the bank's safe-deposit boxes. Beatty's Joe Collins is cool and methodical, and Hawn is a true delight as Dawn Divine, although the movie suffers from a lengthy run time and an ending that seems sort of a meaningless afterthought.

Collins works for a bank in Hamburg, Germany that is on the cutting edge of technological security. Among other things, the bank has - get this! - a 24-hour closed-circuit camera inside its safe, the better to monitor would-be evil-doers. Much is made of this awesome camera. Kind of makes one pine for the days when security cameras were a new thing.

At any rate, Collins and Divine have picked out three nefarious marks - a corrupt sergeant (Scott Brady), a Vegas mobster (Robert Webber), and a drug dealer (Arthur Brauss) - each of whom has deposited dirty money into a safe-deposit box in the bank. These boxes are much as they are today, although the bank employees very pointedly do not get to see what is in them; privacy, you see, is a big selling point for the bank wishing to attract more and more foreign interests.

The plan is to move the monies from the three boxes to Divine's own safety box. Plenty of planning goes into this, and it culminates with a wonderfully tense scene in which Joe, trapped in the safe, attempts the exchange. It's only a matter of time, though, before the various baddies discover what's happened, and there's a long, long chase scene - mostly on foot! - that eats up a chunk of film near the end of the movie.

Hawn is at her giggly, risqué best (this would be during her Laugh-In days), and Beatty stays true to type as the Man with the Plan, the cool cat. I particularly enjoyed how anxious Hawn's Divine is at her own role in the heist - for a phone call she must make, she has her lines written out longhand, and yet she still can only whisper them to the bank's manager, played by Gert Frobe (Auric Goldfinger).

The ending felt like it was lacking something, perhaps some panache or some cohesion. It's almost as if someone woke up in postproduction and realized there was no actual climax and then hastily wrote one in. In fact, after reading a synopsis on IMDb, I wondered if I'd seen the same ending - interestingly, the IMDb synopsis made even less sense than the one I saw.

Finally, there's the issue of the editing and/or direction - the former was too choppy, the latter too rapid. When your movie features an intricate plan, maybe it's best not to rush through every step, forcing your viewers to keep up. Even when we could keep up, it seemed as if some plot elements were missing entirely, leading to many questions left unanswered.

A two-hour bank heist flick with the final 20 minutes featuring one of the longest chase scenes I've ever seen on film. In fact, Warren Beatty and the two guys chasing him must have been Olympic marathon runners to keep up that pace for so long, racing through Hamburg, Germany.

This is a mixture of lighthearted and gritty material about an international robbery.

Joining Beatty ("Joe Collins") in the hijinks is a young Goldie Hawn ("Dawn Divine") and "Goldfinger" of James Bond fame, Gerte Frobe. Scott Brady and Robert Webber also give shorter-but- memorable performances. In all, entertaining but not real heavy in the brains department.

Nice to see this has finally been issued on DVD, and has a nice transfer.

I loved this movie, and it is one of the more memorable movies I have ever seen. It has the perfect mix of character development, humor, drama, location, kooky characters, shady characters and plot twists. The chase scene climax (lasting about thirty minutes) is similar to that of "The Road Warrior" - something that keeps on going on and where you never get bored. Beatty and Hawn did their best work together in this flick, and it gives the viewer a snapshot of what it was like to be alive in the era of the early seventies. If you are looking to see a "lost classic", this movie will do it.

While some call it light, I suppose that's true, but it's missing the point. $ isn't supposed to be nutritious, it's supposed to be delectable. The joy is in the unfolding story with no explanation of what's going on. Beatty says this method of robbing a bank has never been tried, but doesn't tell you what it is. The robbery starts, and you're still uncertain about how he's doing it. Then a few minutes into it, you get the, "oh. OH!" feeling and it's intoxicating to watch a slow-motion robbery, presented in batches of 60 seconds.

I thought the chase was disappointing in its lack of true variety. Goldie's escape method is good, but in general its inventiveness pales compared to the bank heist technique. And all the puzzles make sense when you watch it a second time. But I'll never forget the feeling I had, watching this movie for the first time with my wife's 80 year old grandparents (!?!?!?), and savoring that joy of uncertainty..."what the heck is going on??" Mystery lovers, bon appetite.

I like heist movies. This one is a bit different.

I liked the style of the movie a lot. The music and the camera work were pretty interesting.

I noticed some reviewers were confused by the plot. It's the viewers job to fill in some blanks. Some people will dislike that, others will appreciate that their intelligence is not being insulted.

The movie consists of three main sections. The intro, the heist and the getaway. Goldie Hawn is adorable in the intro section. Beatty does a nice job during the heist section. The getaway is the weak part of the movie, if only because it challenges my ability to suspend my disbelief. Some parts of it were cool though.

I think Beatty was convincing both as a security expert and thief. Hawn, as mentioned above is adorable (I admit I have always found her attractive.) Reasons to watch the movie - you like Beatty, you like Hawn, you like heist movies (though there are better,) or you like quirky 70s movies. The last item should not be overlooked, because there's a distinctive style in certain 70s movies that's no longer seen - for example the implication that sex and drugs and alcohol is simply a lifestyle, rather than a problem that needs to be addressed.