The Real McCoy

I'm just a hair or two from labeling the effort above average, though this movie can still supply sufficient entertainment. Were this film to be remade today it would not need much to attain the status of Above Average. I would however abstain from casting the lead with anyone with similar physical attributes as Ms.Basinger only because to date who robs banks and looks like that!! Very "clean" by todays standards for most genre. Terry Stamp plays the villain with just a tad less venom than IS required for his role, he fall short of making me hate him enough, and Val Kilmer does a superb job with portraying his character. All in all absolutely worth the 1 hour & 45 minutes.

After an opening worthy of "Mission: Impossible", Karen McCoy ends up spending six years in prison. When she gets out, she finds out her ex Roy Sweeney has told her son Patrick that she is dead. Her parole officer Gary Buckner doesn't want her to succeed and is being very demanding. She can't seem to get a good job. Not only that, but Roy is having financial problems.

And J.T. (who is working with Jack Schmidt) is a devoted fan who wants Karen to pull another bank job. Atlanta Union Bank is so secure no one can get in. But she can. Karen wants to go straight, but Schmidt is so determined to see her go back to crime that he threatens Karen's son Patrick, who knows Karen only as his mother's friend.

How will Karen get out of this situation? I can say there is a bank robbery, and one with quite a bit of intelligent planning, deception and even humor, though not quite on a par with, say, "Ocean's Eleven". The question is: does Karen get involved, and if so, is she being honest with those involved in the bank job?

Kim Basinger's character is quite good-looking but also very smart and able to get things done. Nick Searcy and Gailard Sartain could have traded roles, but I think the choices in casting them are ideal. Sartain has never been more convincing in a serious role that I have seen, even though he generally plays buffoons. Searcy has been the Frank Burns type in "Seven Days", so he could have easily done the sadistic parole officer (actually, he's more like Montgomery Burns), but I like him as the buffoon.

Once Karen got out of prison, the movie started out slow but eventually ended up satisfying. You won't believe the ending!

This is the sort of film that will do if nothing else is on but not much else. Its a heist film with Kim Basinger and Val Kilmer and everything in it has been done before and done better. The bank robbery at the end is a bit of a let down because it just seems too easy. It was directed by the man who brought us the fabulous Highlander, but sadly also the truly awful Highlander 2, this film is somewhere in between. The only plus points are the always great to look at Kim Basinger, and Val Kilmer in a different sort of role to his usual stuff. I think Kim Basinger is a great actress but like most females in Hollywood seems to struggle to get decent films to star in, not counting the awesome LA Confidential of course. All in all a very average film ***5/10***

Not sure why this film gets trashed as much as it does, since it's pretty good. It's worth watching for the cast alone -- Basinger, Kilmer and Stamp. But it must be said that the British film upon which it's based is better. That would be Bellman and True (from an old English song) starring a cast of people that you probably never heard of, headlined by Bernard Hill as the computer geek who has to go along to keep his son safe. Bellman and True also serves as something of a time capsule, taking us back to a grotty, depressed and depressing London that is barely visible in British films any more. We can probably put the change in tone down to the Four Weddings effect. The comparison of these two movies serves as an excellent example of one of the more interesting questions of popular culture: why are the Brits generally so much better at movies that feature crime than Hollywood? Think of Cracker, State of Play, Prime Suspect, Behind The Lines, and Mobile.

As a heist movie, I didn't enjoy much. As an action, I have seen better and more memorable. As for the acting, no one did her or his best here. So what's this movie's really interesting point? I'll tell you. It's the title's role.

Movies have accustomed us to watch that kind of roles played by men, not women. That confident, genius, and heartwarming thief has been always a man. This time, it's (Kim Basinger).

Since the 1970s, the American cinema had gone a long way to assure that women can be heroes too. Look closer to 1993 movies: there was violent yet sensitive woman (Point of No Return), a remake of the French movie (La Femme Nikita - 1990), who is a dusty female copy of (James Bond). Funny and philanthropic woman (Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit), a comic copy of (To Sir With Love - 1967). And there was (Body Snatchers) too, a remake of (Invasion of the Body Snatchers - 1959), where the lead role was given to a girl, played by (Gabrielle Anwar). Clearly, it was a man's world, but not anymore.

In another, less daring, less creative, treatment, this could have been a movie for say (Val Kilmer), however - for this movie's good and ours - THANK GOD it wasn't!

So, it's low-tone average entertainment for some afternoon, where its Real McCoy factor is in the sex of who played its Real McCoy!