boris-26 Review of The Hot Rock

The Hot Rock (1972)

This has everything a 70's movie has to offer, cool crooks, dumb cops, a big heist!

[20 January 1999]

Robert Redford has one of his best, but under-rated roles in this forgotten 1972 comedy-thriller. He's a recently released convict who goes in on a caper to steal a diamond from a museum and retrieve it to it's rightful owner, a small African country. Assisting Rob is George Segal and Ron Liebman as a car-crazy who loves to listen to LP's of traffic jam sound effects. The heist results in a comedy of errors where Redford is robbed by a crazy hippie, urinated on, and goes on one nasty helicopter ride through midtown Manhattan (almost crashing into The twin towers as they are being built!) Zero Mostel adds to the film as a double-crossing, cowardly lawyer who faces down a big thug named Chicken. It takes a hynotist working her trade on a bank clerk to straighten things out. Why this film isn't decently released on video, I don't know.