Ladrón por excelencia

Solid film that has multiple people working together to pull off a jewel heist. David Niven is good, and Burt Reynolds breaks out of his "Smokey" types role and does something more sophisticated. Very much on the Oceans mold, though not as good. I always enjoy catching it on TV, fun film with some unexpected twists and turns.

Picture this: Burt Reynolds is at a decadent party. He spies Leslie-Anne Down in a sequined black dress and is determined to meet her. Neither of them speak, until at last, Burt opens his mouth and does his best Cary Grant impersonation. She smiles and asks, "Why are you doing Tony Curtis?" If you laughed just now, you'll like Rough Cut.

Burt catches Leslie stealing diamonds at the party, and he surreptitiously steals them from her a few minutes later. To get them back, she follows him back to his apartment and tries to stealthily rob him. Sparks fly, and he asks her on a date. In the next scene, she visits Chief Inspector David Niven; it turns out, she's cooperating with the police to catch Burt, a notorious jewel thief!

Rough Cut is a constant game of cat-and-mouse and who's-playing-who, so if you like those types of movies, you'll love this one. It's funny and full of twists and turns in the plot-and everyone is easy to root for! Rent this for a cute date night with your sweetie pie; it'll be a lot of fun.

Burt Reynolds was a better actor than he is given credit for, but I suspect his dramatic ambitions were not high. In any case, this is the kind of witty action movie he excelled in. We have here a superb cast, carried by Reynolds and David Niven, and a heist story whose improbabilities can be ignored in favor of the sheer pleasure of watching things progress to a surprise ending. Production values are first rate. This is the kind of light-hearted, intelligent entertainment we don't see much of anymore. A most enjoyable way to fritter away a couple of hours.

An effortless superbly timed performance by Burt Reynolds ('Sam Whiskey' (1969), ('Deliverance' (1972)) as a genial, wise-cracking mustachioed jewel-thief at large in London and Amsterdam. It was NME's Ian Penman who wrote in an eighties article that Reynolds' American thespian flair acting was akin to that of a 'Rolls-Royce'.

For poor David Niven, ROUGH CUT turned out to be the second heist comedy centering on diamond thieves where he gets lost in the mix: First of course was THE PINK PANTHER as the charming, sophisticated criminal with lawman Peter Sellers historically stealing the show, and here Niven himself is the dogged constable yet the entire picture belongs to Burt Reynolds and Lesley-Anne Down playing the suave burglars...

And although directed mostly by American edgy auteur Don Siegel and starring the American box office champ Reynolds, this British-set CUT has the witty pace and polished style of that country's crime-comedy genre including polite expository banter, lavish interior sets and plenty of champagne...

As the best scenes occur during the first half when Reynolds (initially seducing Susan Littler) and Down (who instantly catches his eye) are both figuring a way out of Niven's built-in blackmail, threatening to expose her prior classy-crookedness if she doesn't secretly help bust Burt's Jack Rhodes, the one villain who'd always gotten away...

After which the 11th hour diamond heist/con is overly complicated for both the girl caught in-between, and the audience who, in expecting another Reynolds popcorn-action flick, gets a semi-entertaining old fashion 1940's-in-the-1970's caper -- that needed much more of an edge (from both the director and its star) to give this proverbial clever riddle a more fulfilling punchline.