Word: brink
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This is certainly true of Boston's Brink's robbers. Far from being a gang of master criminals--as was first supposed--the thieves turned out to be nothing more than a bunch of petty, two-bit bumblers who hung out in Scolley Square, pulling off little jobs and dreaming of the big heist. It seemed poetic justice that these ordinary crooks were the ones to hit the prestigious armored-car company for a million and a half dollars. It was a daring robbery, no one got hurt, and the crooks very nearly got away with...
...Brink's Job this legend is played for all it's worth--even more than it's worth. Director William Friedkin is so intent on showing the lovable underdogs who made it big that he bogs the tale down...
...film loosely follows the actual robbery which took place in Boston's North End back in 1950. That one was concocted by 11 men, seven of whom slipped into the Brink's warehouse one evening wearing pea-coats and Halloween masks and made off with the loot. At the time, the Brink's gang wasn't looked on as a bunch of affable fellows who just happened to stumble onto the crime of the century. In fact, a lot of people were convinced that the gang had wide underworld connections. Even six years after the robbery, when the case finally...
...course, such details are not the things that pass into legends--or even movies. Predictably enough, The Brink's Job is nothing but distilled cuteness. It ignores all of the unphotogenic aspects of the gang, and focuses on its incompetence, its sleazy-but-sweet background, and its delight in hoodwinking the country...
This glossing over isn't really a bad thing. The Brink's legend has entertained people for more than 20 years now, and there's no reason to try to do anything more than that with the movie. Friedkin was not even a bad choice for the man to do it. Although he has a reputation from The Exorcist and The French Connection as a calculating director who stops at nothing to wrench an audience's guts, he also has done this sort of nostalgic tribute before. The Night They Raided Minsky's was a rollicking adventure about vaudeville...