Main Cast: Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret, Vanity, John Glover, Robert Trebor
Release Year: 1986
Country: US
Run Time: 111 minutes
Plot
Wealthy metallurgist Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) lives to regret his extramarital affair with pretty young Cini (Kelly Preston). A trio of vicious blackmailers (John Glover, Robert Trebor, Clarence Williams III) show Mitchell a videotape of his most recent roll in the sack with Cini. They demand a huge amount of hush money, but Mitchell calls their bluff, going so far as to tell his politicially ambitious wife Barbara (Ann-Margret) about the affair. But the extortionists haven't even gotten started yet. Tying Mitchell to a chair, they force him to watch a tape of Cini being horribly murdered-with the evidence arranged so that Mitchell will be accused of the crime. But Mitchell remains firm in his refusal to pay up, whereupon he mounts a "fight fire with fire" plan all his own. 52 Pick Up was based on a novel by Elmore Leonard, which was previously filmed in 1984 as The Ambassador. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
This early adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel and screenplay has its interesting moments but, like Stick and other 1980s versions of Leonard's work, doesn't quite capture the offbeat humorous tone of later, more successful Leonard stories such as Get Shorty or Jackie Brown. The blame can probably be laid on director John Frankenheimer, who is a master craftsman with action and suspense but is notoriously short on humor; arguably no American filmmaker really knew how to combine humor and murderous mayhem to such delirious effect until Quentin Tarantino did it in 1994's Pulp Fiction. Still, the dialogue is sharp, and Frankenheimer mixes sleaze and suspense well. John Glover, as a gleefully sociopathic extortionist, and Clarence Williams III, as his loony drugged-out cohort, suggest the over-the-top possibilities that Tarantino later brought to life. Watch for Mrs. John Travolta, actress Kelly Preston, in an early role as the doomed girlfriend of businessman Roy Scheider. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide
Lonny Chapman - Jim O'Boyle; Kelly Preston - Cini; Clarence Williams III - Bobby Shy; Doug McClure - Averson; Debra Berger - O'Boyle's Wife; Tom Byron - Party Goer; Christopher Cory - Factory Worker; Blackie Dammett - Drug Dealer; Barbara Ferris - Lisa; John Francis - Policeman; Bill Gratton - Ed Salvon; Alex Henteloff - Dan Lowenthal; Ron Hyatt - Party Goer; Amber Lynn - Party Goer; Sharon Mitchell - Party Goer; Anthony Palmer - Tom; Shirley Thompson - Party Goer; Robin Bronfman - Injured Driver; Conroy Gedeon - James Boyer; Lenora Logan - Lady in Hall; Arlin Miller - Celebrity Voice Impersonation; Louis Di Giaimo; Frank Sivero - Vendor
Credit
Russell Christian - Art Director, Ray Summers - Costume Designer, John Frankenheimer - Director, Robert F. Shugrue - Editor, Gary Chang - Composer (Music Score), Philip Harrison - Production Designer, Jost Vacano - Cinematographer, Yoram Globus - Producer, Menahem Golan - Producer, Henry T. Weinstein - Producer, Max Whitehouse - Set Designer, Marshall Brickman - Screenwriter, Elmore Leonard - Screenwriter, John Steppling - Screenwriter, Howard Brandy - Unit Publicist, Elmore Leonard - Book Author
Roy Scheider plays industrialist Harry Mitchell, a wealthy, married man living in the suburbs of Los Angeles whose wife is running for city council while he is having an affair. Harry is confronted by three blackmailers demanding $105,000 for a videotape of him and his mistress (Kelly Preston). Because of his wife's (Ann-Margret) political aspirations, he can't go to the police.
In agreeing to pay the blackmailers to keep his affair a secret, Harry opens his financial records to one of them with a background in accounting, Alan Raimy (John Glover). Seeing that Mitchell cannot pay the $105,000, Raimy accepts Harry's counter offer of $52,000. Harry then attempts to turn the blackmailers against one another.
Novel vs. film
The film is regarded as reasonably close to Elmore Leonard's original novel, except that it is set in Los Angeles instead of Detroit. Also, in the novel the Harry Mitchell character is having problems with the labour force at his business in addition to the main blackmail/kidnap plot.
Reception
It was characterized in the year of its release by The New York Times film critic Janet Maslin as being "...fast-paced, lurid, exploitative and loaded with malevolent energy. John Frankenheimer, who directed, hasn't done anything this darkly entertaining since 'Black Sunday.'"[1]
