Product Description

Starring Oscar® winner* George C. Scott with a comical cast of "first-rate actors" (The New York Times), this "hilarious" (VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever) film brims with "wonderful and imaginative silliness" (Los Angeles Times)! Fresh from his recent jailbreak, criminal mastermind Walter Ballantine (Scott) is already plotting his next bank heist. Andthis time he's thinking bighe's not just taking the loot, he's stealing the whole bank! Beset bya hapless crew, a lusty backer and an overzealous prison warden, Ballantine soon discovers that, when your getaway vehicle is the bank itself, it pays to be America's most driven criminal! *1970: Actor, Patton

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #72579 in DVD
• Brand: SCOTT,GEORGE C.
• Released on: 2003-02-18
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .24 pounds
• Running time: 84 minutes

Amazon.com
The concept is sound: George C. Scott is the legendary heist man who breaks prison (in a 40-ton earthmover, no less, which makes for an interesting chase scene) to take charge of a haphazard job. Taking the term "bank robbery" literally, he decides to make off with the entire bank! Now he just has to hide it from a statewide dragnet (led by rotund redneck icon Clifton James) and keep his ragged gang in line while a volatile safecracker blows up everything except the safe. Adapted from the Donald Westlake novel (from his Dortmunder series) and directed at a shrill pitch by dance legend Gower Champion, Bank Shot is an awkward but amiable misfire of a comic caper. Scott seems ill at ease, as if wondering how he ever wound up here, but he maintains a straight face while all around him furiously mug for laughs. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Blank shot
BANK SHOT (1974) is an unamusing comedy that features George C. Scott as a lisping prison escapee who heads a cast of zany (but again unamusing) cohorts. Among these are Bob Balaban, reprising his elfin-smiled pilot Orr persona from CATCH-22 (1970) and former NFLer Frank McRae as a bumbling, bomb-happy safecracker. McRae is best known to modern audiences as fast double-talking Lt. Dekker in Arnold Schwarzenegger's LAST ACTION HERO (1993).

The only distinguishing characteristic of Sorrell Booke's heist arranger is a collection of eccentric mustaches. Booke looks about 100 lbs. heavier than he did a only decade earlier while playing a congressman in FAIL-SAFE. Speaking of facial hair, Mr. Scott's massively overgrown eyebrows were in bad need of mowing here.

Joanna Cassidy as the theft's bankroller and Scott's love interest (if it weren't for saltpeter) is a cipher in a horrid red plaid pantsuit. And that's another issue: fashions in this picture are '70s GROSS.

It was pleasant seeing BOB NEWHART SHOW vet Jack Riley as an FBI agent, but he has little to do and his high-strung neurotic Elliott Carlin is nowhere to be found. Porky Clifton James as the gang's pursuer is his usual blustery, abrasive self but he's just NOT FUNNY.

For the record, this movie's plot is simple: steal a single-wide mobile home that temporarily houses an under-construction bank's assets. A burglar-proof safe, water soluble paint used to disguise the trailer and a lousy script all conspire to make this sequel to THE HOT ROCK (1972) a cold stone drag. Caveat emptor!

Very Funny
Don't let the "Professional Reviewer's" comments dissuade you, this is a classic! If you like a light hearted comedy, you'll like this.

More for collectors ...
This is the umpteenth heist movie I have seen. Bank Shot has an original story but somehow it failed to convince me. The comedy aspect falls pretty flat, the performance of George C. Scott is very laid back - it is hard to believe the same man played General Patton and other energetic characters. His exaggerated eyebrows must be one of the weirdest make ups in movie history. Curiously only a year before someone released a similar comedy misfire based on a Donald Westlake novel - The Hot Rock, with Robert Redford in a similar role like George C. Scott and with a similarly unconvincing performance. Anybody who liked The Hot Rock will like Bank Shot, one might deduce.