The Real McCoy

Directed by Russell Mulcahy, The Real McCoy follows Kim Basinger’s Karen McCoy as she’s blackmailed into pulling off a daring bank robbery alongside a hunky yet far-from-savvy thief named J.T. (Val Kilmer). It’s a decidedly familiar premise that’s employed to generic yet consistently watchable effect by Mulcahy, as the filmmaker, working from William Osborne and William Davies’ screenplay, delivers a just-good-enough caper film that benefits substantially from its smattering of engrossing sequences and the uniformly engaging performances – with Basinger’s solid turn as the tortured lead character matched by an eclectic supporting cast that includes Nick Searcy, Gailard Sartain, and Terence Stamp. (The latter is especially entertaining as the menacing bad guy, although Kilmer certainly does an effective job of stepping into the shoes of his affable love interest.) There’s little doubt, however, that The Real McCoy suffers from a fairly bland sensibility that ultimately prevents it from becoming either engrossing or wholeheartedly engaging, and it’s clear, too, that the movie’s overlong running time paves the way for a handful of lulls within the narrative (ie the climactic heist isn’t quite as tight and exciting as one might’ve hoped) – which does, in the end, cement the picture’s place as a decent thriller that generally feels as though it could (and should) have been so much better.

**1/2 out of ****