Ladrão por Excelência

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.

In his long lists of wonderful movies, Mr. David Niven has given audiences some real gems, this is among those which did not market very well, but has become a notable jewel. Niven plays an English Inspector who has tallied a great number of criminals. One however has continued to elude him for twenty years. Mr Jack Rhodes (Burt Reynolds) is the one Jewel thief he hopes to arrest before he is forced into retirement. To do that he extorts the services of Gillian Bromley (Lesley-Anne Down) another jewel thief. Her task is to lure Rhodes into a heist with a snare. The movie, Directed by Don Siegel, has many copy-cats such as 'jack of Diamonds' 'Entrapment' and 'Thomas Crown Affair.' In each is danger, interest and romance, but with this version, comedy become the additional element. Reynolds and Niven work well together and in doing so carry this film well. With good character actors like Patrick Magee and Timothy West, the story written by Larry Gelbart (MASH) fits well for all fans. As a result Reynolds and Niven create amusing fanfare for everybody. ****

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.

Rough Cut is delicious froth, a shiny bauble of wonderfully made costume jewelry - not the real thing, but so much fun you don't care how silly and artificial it is. Burt Reynolds and the overpoweringly gorgeous Lesley-Anne Down are so perfect in the lead roles that you forgive this movie its many flaws.

This is, essentially, a fairy tale. You know everything will go right, it's just a question of how. It's like the great early 1990s British show Lovejoy - filmed in a beautiful England of pastels and greenery, of charming U characters and not-all-that-menacing bad guys.

It's just a very enjoyable, very romantic caper movie with two terrific stars and a fine supporting cast, filmed in splendid colors. Everything doesn't have to be Some Like It Hot.

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'.