The Big Steal

Directed by Don Siegel, The Big Steal follows Robert Mitchum’s Duke Halliday as he and a mysterious woman (Jane Greer’s Joan) attempt to find and capture a man (Patric Knowles’ Jim) accused of stealing a sizeable fortune. Filmmaker Siegel, working from Gerald Drayson Adams and Daniel Mainwaring’s screenplay, delivers an exceedingly erratic thriller that fares especially poorly in its uninvolving and egregiously deliberate opening stretch, as the picture suffers from a general lack of context that essentially prevents the viewer from working up much interest in or enthusiasm for the protagonists’ exploits. (It’s clear, too, that the talented performers remain predominantly unable to breathe much life into their one-dimensional, underdeveloped figures.) And although the film receives a hefty (and much-appreciated) burst of exposition at around the half hour mark, The Big Steal eventually progresses into a frenetic yet mostly tedious midsection that isn’t, despite its wealth of chase sequences, able to lift the proceedings out of its palpable doldrums – which is a shame, certainly, given that the movie closes with an admittedly exciting (and twist-laden) final stretch. The end result is a woefully lackluster piece of work that often feels a fair share longer than its 71 minutes, and it’s difficult, ultimately, not to wonder what Siegel originally intended to accomplish with this half-baked misfire.

** out of ****