Dollars

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.

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.

American banking engineer, orchestrating the opening of a high-tech new bank in Germany, conspires to rip-off a gang of crooks and low-lifes who keep their loot in private boxes at the branch. There is quite a long set-up to the protracted chase in this film; luckily it involves a daffy, wonderful Goldie Hawn as a hooker/accomplice to thief Warren Beatty. Hawn is a living, breathing cliffhanger, you never know what she's going to do next. In the middle of the hysteria, there's a beautifully modulated moment where she tells Beatty about a screen-test she did for the movies ("First take, nothing. Second take, I dunno know...tears. Third take, I forgot my own name. And I made it up myself!"). The chase takes up about two entire reels, and it's been edited with hairbreadth timing. I also loved what first appeared to be a twist ending: someone dupes someone else, and then in turn gets duped. It would've been an awesome climax, but there's a weird tag at the very end of the picture (ostensibly to wrap it up with a bow) which is sort of a letdown. It seems to involve none of the participants--only their props!--which leads me to believe this was a post-production/last minute decision. Still, "$" (pronounced "Dollars") is funny, smart, and filmed in a cool, jazzy style that is no longer fashionable but certainly memorable. ***1/2 from ****

"$" from 1971 stars Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Scott Brady, Gert Frobe, and Robert Webber. Filmed in Europe, the story is about a bank security expert (Beatty) who plans on robbing said bank -- but only the safe deposit boxes belonging to thieves who can't go to the police. He's helped by a prostitute (Hawn) who has entertained these guys.

Very good heist film, with the world's longest and most exhausting chase scene I've ever seen. You'll be ready for bed by the time it's over. Warren Beatty is terrific as the cool, self-assured security man who somehow remains calm in the face of adversity. Hawn is a riot as a former Las Vegas showgirl who is a nervous wreck about her part in the heist.

I would only say, at 2 hours plus, it's a little long for what it is. They could have cut as much as a half an hour and been fine.

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.