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Till date I have not seen the 2003 version of this movie which starred Donald Sutherland. And believe me after watching the original stuff, all you who had seen it would wonder as to why you did it.

Why you make ask???? Let me give you a bit of insight into this one to whet your appetite. So here it goes……………

With a roll of the titles we see the beautiful red Lamborghini Miura being driven through the winding Alps. As the background song (On days like these by Matt Monro) is about to end the car comes out of a dark tunnel to meet head-on with a heavy duty construction shovel. The car is completely mangled and is pushed off the mountain into a deep valley.

The driver of the car was Beckerman (Rosanno Brazzi) and the folks who murdered him were from the Italian mafia. Beckerman had come up with a plan to rob gold bullion during transit in Turin, Italy. This was to be achieved by sabotaging the traffic computers of the city thereby creating a mass traffic jam. As all the roads of the city would be blocked off and cops would not be a good position to chase the robbers, the small sized Mini’s are to be used as getaway cars.

Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) has just been released from jail and has ambitious plans to do a big job that will set him up for the rest of his life. He meets Mrs. Beckerman who gives him all detailed plans for the robbery. To get the plan moving Charlie needs financial support for which he meets Mr. Bridger (Noel Coward), the uncrowned king of underworld. Mr. Bridger is currently lodged in jail where he is living a life, lets say, that is fit for a high profile and wealthy English gentleman. Even though he is behind bars he has enough clout to run his organization from there. He buys into Charlie’s plan as it involves robbing the bullion from under the nose of Italian Mafia, whom he hates to the core.

With enough financial backing Charlie goes on to assemble a team of the best skilled people for this job. In his ranks he has Professor Peach (Benny Hill) who has been assigned the task of sabotaging the traffic computer.

The plan is simple. First, rob the bullion truck during transit, sabotage the traffic computer to create mass traffic jam, load all the gold in three Mini cars. Get out of town using various small alleys, rivers, buildings and sewers. Once out of town, the three Minis’ are to be loaded on to a moving bus. The gold is to be moved from the cars to the bus and the cars are to be disposed off in the treacherous roads of Alps.

There are various lines that have become classic in their own right. If all Indians know that the line “kitne aadmi the” is from Sholay, most of Britain is aware that the sentence “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!” is from this movie.

The movie has a totally different kind of ending than the ones we normally see. It ends with Charlie uttering another gem of line which is “Hang on a minute lads, I’ve got a great idea! Err…”

This was THE MOVIE that firmly established Michael Caine and catapulted him to stardom. The movie is very quick paced and has touch of absolute simple humor. Even though it was released in 1969, it posses a car chase sequence that is far superior than done in today’s big budget movies. Other then Charlie and Mr. Bridger, other characters don’t have big roles but enough to keep viewers interested in them. This is the only movie of the film director (Peter Collinson) I have seen but am damn impressed by the sheer simplicity he has shown. It was produced by Michael Deeley who has also produced Blade Runner & The Deer Hunter (I would be doing reviews of both these very soon).

Ending of the movie has enough substance for a sequel that was never made. I really wished it was made.

And it does not look like my wish will be granted.

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