Loophole (1981) Albert Finney, Martin Sheen, Susannah York, Colin Blakely, Jonathan Pryce, Robert Morley Movie Review

Loophole (1981)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Martin Sheen in Loophole (1981)

Bank Boredom

Mike Daniels (Albert Finney) is a heist man who has set his eyes on pulling off the impossible job, robbing a bank vault deep beneath the streets of London. What he needs for the job is an architect as they are going to attack from within the sewers. And he finds one in Stephen Booker (Martin Sheen), a married American living in England who after a series of career set backs has found himself debt ridden and desperate.

There is a scene in "Loophole" where having been hired by Mike Daniels and his partner to devise plans for a building Stephen shows up at the office to show Mike what he has come up with. It is a scene which has one purpose which shows up a couple of minutes later as he returns to discover Mike and his partner only rented the room. The thing is that whilst it leads in to Stephen finding Mike at a gentleman's club where he learns the truth of what Mike wants him to do it ends up a scene which in truth seems pointless, a minor detail which didn't need as much attention as it gets and could of been a lot less dull than it ends up. The thing is that "Loophole" is full of these types of scenes which focus on irrelevant details rather than the excitement of a heist and it makes the movie dull rather than thrilling.

And to be honest "Loophole" frustrates for what I have just said because it makes it plod along never really bringing to life the mechanics of this audacious bank job. Now in fairness maybe this style of movie was more effective back in 1981 when it was made, I have only recently discovered it so I can't say, but when watched now it simply feels devoid of life compared to many other heist movies, both before this one and since. As such whilst "Loophole" features a cast led by the talents of Albert Finney and Martin Sheen it never does anything to really capture your attention, plodding through a heist story with little in the way of imagination and excitement.

What this all boils down to is that "Loophole" wasn't for me and having watched it I am not honestly surprised it is a forgotten movie because it has little to make you want to remember it.


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