The Swap

Great material for some future SNL skit. This one was a real stinker even back in the day as I recall. There's not much good that one can say about this film however it does give a reasonably realistic feel for the times back then.... but "groovy" it is not. I think this movie could be redone as a comedy however several attempts may have already been tried (aka Starsky & Hutch, The Legend Of Ron Burgundy,and, well you get the picture). I'm sure Mr DiNiro still winces when this one is brought up in conversation....but hey, it was "the crazy sixties" and decent indie vehicles were just in their infancy back then. The plot is overly simplistic and the film quality is grainy and basically matches the content for quality, or lack thereof. I wouldn't consider this film as "awful" but it won't be on my next Saturday Night At The Movies list for sure. (terrible waste of good popcorn!)

1st watched 4/29/2010 – 2 out of 10 (Dir-John C. Broderick & John Shade): Poorly made and badly acted mystery/revenge movie billed as an early starring role for Robert De Niro but could have done much better with more of him. The De Niro character gets killed at the beginning of the movie and the rest of the movie involves his brother, Vinnie, getting out of jail 10 years later and trying to find out who killed him. The real star of the film is the actor who plays Vinnie but De Niro got the top billing even though he is in a lot fewer scenes. The acting was very bad for the most part in this movie coming from the main character. It was somewhat interesting trying to figure out where the story was going but it was pretty easy to piece things together at about the midway point of the film. The soundtrack was kind of strange in that it changed abruptly at different parts of the movie when it really made no sense. Before the movie was over it became laughable watching the cardboard actors say their silly lines and I was glad it only lasted 86 minutes(although it could have been shorter to take away my suffering). De Niro was fine in the movie but he wasn't the star and everyone has to start somewhere but I'm sure he'd even look at this film as a lowpoint in his career. Avoid this one – even with his name attached, the movie's not worth it.

In 1969, Sam Nicoletti (Robert de Niro) is a film editor. He gets killed by a mysterious stranger. Ten years later, Sam's brother Vito gets out of prison. He starts investigating Sam's death as De Niro appears in flashbacks.

In 1969, an unknown Robert De Niro starred in a little movie called Sam's Song. It is little seen. Director Jordan Leondopoulos uses footage from that movie to incorporate into his new movie. He obviously couldn't get De Niro or anybody from the first movie. This is a jumble mess. I would love to watch a young De Niro in a nothing movie like Sam's Song. This is watching snippets of disjointed sections of that movie. I couldn't follow Sam's story and Vito's story is horribly stiff. Sam's Song looks like a bad indie and the new footage looks infinitely worst. Other than seeing a younger De Niro, this is not worth the effort.

Vinnie gets out of jail after serving 10 years and tries to find out who killed his younger brother - played by a young Robert de Niro.

Some plot.

DeNiro is VERY young in this movie that looks like it was financed with mob money.In fact, his scenes are taken from a 1969 movie called Sam's Song!!!And when I say scenes, DeNiro is literally in the movie 90 seconds despite getting top billing!!!!

The crazy director went on to teach at City University in NY. Sybil Danning has blue hair. Why? We never find out. A couple scenes later it's brown.

The movie is pretty bad.

Incorporates scenes from the 1969 film "Sam's Song" of Robert DeNiro (as Sam) playing an aspiring director who meets a couple (Warren and Mickey) and an apparently single woman (Crawford) with whom he develops mutual bonds over one party-filled weekend at the beach. But when he's murdered, his fiercely protective brother (Charnotta) vows to avenge his death and ten years' later upon his release from gaol, he pieces together Sam's final days to seek retribution.

Neither DeNiro nor Warren - whose stars had risen in the intervening years between the 1969 footage and this 1979 re-edit - appear in the subsequently shot scenes, though naturally much is made of their names in the credits for marquee value. Both Mickey and Crawford reprise their roles, but Charnotta is essentially the central character here, his interrogations abetted by Lisa Blount as his frustrated chauffeur who once 'worked' for his brother. James Brown has a couple of scenes as a detective warning Charnotta not to dig too deeply into his brother's murder, and the sultry Sybil Danning playing the modern-day Warren role is entirely wasted sitting behind a desk.

Tedious attempt at a film noir, bereft of action and suspense, just a dreary series of one-on-one conversations interspersed with flashbacks of the melodramatic romantic quartet, making the most out of DeNiro's scant, unrelated footage. Though there's an occasional promise of something entertaining, it never eventuates. Even the film's climax is a non-event, hampered by a shoestring budget that teases, but fails to deliver.