Also the Thin Inside Third Man
Today's review: The MacKintosh Man.
The MacKintosh Man had two things that got my attention; it was described as a thriller and it had James Mason in it. Given how much I enjoyed those things separately (and how they’d been combined to great effect in North By Northwest), I figured there was a good chance I’d like this one too. Alas, that didn’t turn out to be the case.
The story centers around a man named Joseph Rearden (Paul Newman) who starts the movie by attending a secret meeting in London with a man named MacKintosh (Harry Andrews) and his assistant Mrs. Smith (Dominique Sanda). They plan out a diamond heist, giving Rearden an alias as an Australian with a criminal record in the process. While the heist is successful, Rearden is captured by the police, tried, and sent to prison. After he’s been in there for a while, he’s given the opportunity to escape, or rather, pay someone to break him out. This is also successful, and he’s freed along with a man named Slade (Ian Bannen). And it’s right about here that things get complicated.
My first inkling this movie wasn’t going to be great was the fact that I was kind of bored twelve minutes in. This wouldn’t have been so bad if it was just a lot of setup and exposition, but those twelve minutes also included the actual diamond heist. It’s actually impressive that the filmmakers managed to make something like that dull, though it’s not something I’d be proud of. If you want specifics on how uninterested I was, I noticed shortly after the heist that there was a bouncy, jaunty musical motif that I was convinced was aping the zither music from The Third Man, which inspired me to go rewatch a scene from that movie on Youtube…right at that moment. It’s one thing to be reminded of one movie while watching another, but it’s not a good sign when you decide to go watch that other movie (or at least some of the movie) instead.
To try to be fair to the movie, it does pick up from that point. To be honest, all the stuff surrounding the prison and the breakout is actually pretty good. Not only is the prison set very striking inside and out, but I like seeing the creativity the inmates have in order to organize things, from supplies to escapes. Unfortunately, it starts to fall apart again after the escape, but in order to properly discuss this, I’ll have to resort to SPOILERS.
As I said in the introduction, part of what attracted me to the movie was James Mason’s involvement. Well, he got third billing in the credits, but by the time of the breakout, he’d only had two very small scenes, where his character, Sir George Wheeler, is speaking in front of Parliament. Even before the scene where Wheeler meets with MacKintosh, I began to suspect that Mason was one of the bad guys. It was possible that he got third billing thanks to his star power, but since the Parliament scenes only barely connected to what Rearden was up to, him being evil was the most likely possibility. I turned out to be right, though his motivations were oblique to me (it’s possible I was still not engaged enough that it didn’t properly register for me) and he still doesn’t wind up doing all that much in the grand scheme of things. Maybe there was some truth to the star power thing after all.
SPOILERS OVER. Once we finally figure out what the real point of the movie is, we get a lot of familiar thriller plot points. There’s a car chase, a daring escape, infiltrating a swanky party, and things like that, but while they’re competently executed, they’re not particularly exciting to watch. Really, the element that made the biggest impact on me was a plot twist that’s classic melodrama on one hand, yet is said matter-of-factly and just becomes part of the plot with little fanfare, which is an interesting way to go about things. The ending is also memorable, but mostly because I once again don’t fully understand what just happened. This may just be my problem, but I’m sure I won’t be the only person who has this reaction.
As should probably be obvious, I don’t recommend this one. It’s got just enough decent material to keep it from being considered a bad movie, but it’s still not worth an hour and forty minutes of your time. It would be better spent watching other movies; I even kind of recommended two right in the review…
The MacKintosh Man had two things that got my attention; it was described as a thriller and it had James Mason in it. Given how much I enjoyed those things separately (and how they’d been combined to great effect in North By Northwest), I figured there was a good chance I’d like this one too. Alas, that didn’t turn out to be the case.
The story centers around a man named Joseph Rearden (Paul Newman) who starts the movie by attending a secret meeting in London with a man named MacKintosh (Harry Andrews) and his assistant Mrs. Smith (Dominique Sanda). They plan out a diamond heist, giving Rearden an alias as an Australian with a criminal record in the process. While the heist is successful, Rearden is captured by the police, tried, and sent to prison. After he’s been in there for a while, he’s given the opportunity to escape, or rather, pay someone to break him out. This is also successful, and he’s freed along with a man named Slade (Ian Bannen). And it’s right about here that things get complicated.
My first inkling this movie wasn’t going to be great was the fact that I was kind of bored twelve minutes in. This wouldn’t have been so bad if it was just a lot of setup and exposition, but those twelve minutes also included the actual diamond heist. It’s actually impressive that the filmmakers managed to make something like that dull, though it’s not something I’d be proud of. If you want specifics on how uninterested I was, I noticed shortly after the heist that there was a bouncy, jaunty musical motif that I was convinced was aping the zither music from The Third Man, which inspired me to go rewatch a scene from that movie on Youtube…right at that moment. It’s one thing to be reminded of one movie while watching another, but it’s not a good sign when you decide to go watch that other movie (or at least some of the movie) instead.
To try to be fair to the movie, it does pick up from that point. To be honest, all the stuff surrounding the prison and the breakout is actually pretty good. Not only is the prison set very striking inside and out, but I like seeing the creativity the inmates have in order to organize things, from supplies to escapes. Unfortunately, it starts to fall apart again after the escape, but in order to properly discuss this, I’ll have to resort to SPOILERS.
As I said in the introduction, part of what attracted me to the movie was James Mason’s involvement. Well, he got third billing in the credits, but by the time of the breakout, he’d only had two very small scenes, where his character, Sir George Wheeler, is speaking in front of Parliament. Even before the scene where Wheeler meets with MacKintosh, I began to suspect that Mason was one of the bad guys. It was possible that he got third billing thanks to his star power, but since the Parliament scenes only barely connected to what Rearden was up to, him being evil was the most likely possibility. I turned out to be right, though his motivations were oblique to me (it’s possible I was still not engaged enough that it didn’t properly register for me) and he still doesn’t wind up doing all that much in the grand scheme of things. Maybe there was some truth to the star power thing after all.
SPOILERS OVER. Once we finally figure out what the real point of the movie is, we get a lot of familiar thriller plot points. There’s a car chase, a daring escape, infiltrating a swanky party, and things like that, but while they’re competently executed, they’re not particularly exciting to watch. Really, the element that made the biggest impact on me was a plot twist that’s classic melodrama on one hand, yet is said matter-of-factly and just becomes part of the plot with little fanfare, which is an interesting way to go about things. The ending is also memorable, but mostly because I once again don’t fully understand what just happened. This may just be my problem, but I’m sure I won’t be the only person who has this reaction.
As should probably be obvious, I don’t recommend this one. It’s got just enough decent material to keep it from being considered a bad movie, but it’s still not worth an hour and forty minutes of your time. It would be better spent watching other movies; I even kind of recommended two right in the review…