The Hot Rock is Peter Yates' goofy, likable crime comedy about some goofy, likable crooks – all of them, in that small gang they forge, going through their own respective Hell in trying apprehend a diamond they've been employed to steal. The film works because of Yates' ability to keep things moving at the tremendous pace that he does, the film effectively a series of causality driven set pieces leading from one to the other as these guys try to come into possession of the Macguffin, of which each are as funny and as involving and as creative enough to make the film worth one's while. The text began life as a straight up heist novel; a leaner, meaner piece as penned by Donald Westlake sometime in the late 1960s to add to his already increasing canon of Parker (later Walker, then Porter, under various filmic guises) books that had been published. Yates plays it as a straight up caper comedy, without any slow; gradual; misplaced realisation that it's going to get nastier as things progress - it is very much the sort of film in which the lead crook is robbed of his watch, at knife-point, outside of a police station and in a very specific way that just makes it quite funny without necessarily being overly nasty.
That lead crook is a certain John Dortmunder, played by Robert Redford in a role that predates The Sting by about a year; a man out on the streets after yet another prison stretch who is eyed within minutes of his release by his equally criminally minded brother-in-law Andy Kelp (Segal). The two men share an odd relationship; Kelp is this pink shirt wearing, rather highly-pitched voiced man whom takes a slap in the face from Dortmunder but humorously chases him down anyway via his car and pins him into a location so as to speak to him. Kelp is bringing Dortmunder into an operation organised by an African United Nations representative named Amusa (Gunn), a man who wants them to steal that of a diamond; the titular hot rock; a diamond which belonged to his forefathers but was stolen from them and that has since been thrust up into the air in terms of ownership, shifting possession from tribe to tribe and colonial master to colonial master like a free addition of a daily newspaper on a mainline. Presently, the diamond is there for the taking whilst inside of an exhibition at a New York museum.
Amusa, despite being the man of distinction that he is, rejects the more modern; more regimented notions of paperwork and the courts to decide who's "tribe" or "side" the rightful owner of this jewel is, and has turned to a more old fashioned labour of theft and crime to take what he wants. Brought in, after Dortmunder reluctantly accepts the proposal, is a demolitions expert named Greenberg (Sand) and that of Murch (Leibman), a petrol-head if ever there was one, whose base of operation is right beside that of a highway featuring numerous lanes in each direction and whose recordings of car engines filling the room of his garage plays to him like beautiful music would to us. Schemes are cooked up and plans go awry; we marvel at the manner in which these people, clearly gifted in that art of thinking and deducing if it means swiping something that isn't theirs, concoct such audacious ideas, that come across as fail-proof before being put into action, only to unravel at their very seams in what is writing that takes time to build an idea before gleefully knocking back down again with escalated creativity.
The film has a distinct charm to its proceedings, whether it's because of the fact we're asked to assume that a bunch of security guards can be fooled into thinking the bandits are trapped the other side of a door marked 'exit', or something else, remains somewhat elusive. The allure is in the processes the four leads go through; the wit and interplay they share between them, but always the creativity behind the concocting of audacious stunts to try and swing the tide back to their favour. Where immense pleasure is derived from the creativity therein of the writing of these people and their ideas they cook up, there is that masochistic ring to proceedings when it becomes prominent those in charge of such stamps of creativity are taking more pleasure in laying out the proverbial trail of elastic to trip these guys up than they are enjoying them get away with an ingenious idea. Never do we feel that these people are of the really hardened criminally minded sort, a notion the film plays with when, during one instance, the guys must act as exactly this in order to fool someone into thinking their life's in danger; the scene is played with a blind goofiness that keeps everything in check, these people are consistent to their behaviour and Yates to the tone of the film, but the piece is about a group of men going through some thoroughly inconsistent times, and our pleasures derived from watching them react to that is the point.
That lead crook is a certain John Dortmunder, played by Robert Redford in a role that predates The Sting by about a year; a man out on the streets after yet another prison stretch who is eyed within minutes of his release by his equally criminally minded brother-in-law Andy Kelp (Segal). The two men share an odd relationship; Kelp is this pink shirt wearing, rather highly-pitched voiced man whom takes a slap in the face from Dortmunder but humorously chases him down anyway via his car and pins him into a location so as to speak to him. Kelp is bringing Dortmunder into an operation organised by an African United Nations representative named Amusa (Gunn), a man who wants them to steal that of a diamond; the titular hot rock; a diamond which belonged to his forefathers but was stolen from them and that has since been thrust up into the air in terms of ownership, shifting possession from tribe to tribe and colonial master to colonial master like a free addition of a daily newspaper on a mainline. Presently, the diamond is there for the taking whilst inside of an exhibition at a New York museum.
Amusa, despite being the man of distinction that he is, rejects the more modern; more regimented notions of paperwork and the courts to decide who's "tribe" or "side" the rightful owner of this jewel is, and has turned to a more old fashioned labour of theft and crime to take what he wants. Brought in, after Dortmunder reluctantly accepts the proposal, is a demolitions expert named Greenberg (Sand) and that of Murch (Leibman), a petrol-head if ever there was one, whose base of operation is right beside that of a highway featuring numerous lanes in each direction and whose recordings of car engines filling the room of his garage plays to him like beautiful music would to us. Schemes are cooked up and plans go awry; we marvel at the manner in which these people, clearly gifted in that art of thinking and deducing if it means swiping something that isn't theirs, concoct such audacious ideas, that come across as fail-proof before being put into action, only to unravel at their very seams in what is writing that takes time to build an idea before gleefully knocking back down again with escalated creativity.
The film has a distinct charm to its proceedings, whether it's because of the fact we're asked to assume that a bunch of security guards can be fooled into thinking the bandits are trapped the other side of a door marked 'exit', or something else, remains somewhat elusive. The allure is in the processes the four leads go through; the wit and interplay they share between them, but always the creativity behind the concocting of audacious stunts to try and swing the tide back to their favour. Where immense pleasure is derived from the creativity therein of the writing of these people and their ideas they cook up, there is that masochistic ring to proceedings when it becomes prominent those in charge of such stamps of creativity are taking more pleasure in laying out the proverbial trail of elastic to trip these guys up than they are enjoying them get away with an ingenious idea. Never do we feel that these people are of the really hardened criminally minded sort, a notion the film plays with when, during one instance, the guys must act as exactly this in order to fool someone into thinking their life's in danger; the scene is played with a blind goofiness that keeps everything in check, these people are consistent to their behaviour and Yates to the tone of the film, but the piece is about a group of men going through some thoroughly inconsistent times, and our pleasures derived from watching them react to that is the point.