Saturday, October 30, 2021

Box Office Flashback: June 11, 2021

Mid-June is an ideal time to release a blockbuster.  Sometimes they're one of the biggest films ever released.  Other times...well, not every movie released this weekend was a classic.

One Year Ago--June 12, 2020

#1 Movie:

The Invisible Man (unofficial)/Becky (official)

New Theatrical Releases:

Infamous--$0.4 million/112/21%/40--In this thriller, a pair of twentysomethings (Bella Thorne, Jake Manley) stuck in a dead-end town discover that, when they livestream a robbery, their number of social media followers begins to skyrocket.  Inspired, they decided to go on a coast-to-coast crime spree, with both fans and the police watching their moves closely.  Amber Riley co-stars.  This was negatively compared to Bonnie and Clyde and Natural Born Killers, and even in limited release, only had a muted impact.
Director: Joshua Caldwell

Sometimes Always Never--$0.04 million/213/82%/67--Not to be confused with Never Rarely Sometimes Always, which had come out a few months prior, this British comedy-drama starred Bill Nighy as a Scrabble enthusiast who is staying with his reluctant son (Sam Riley), while searching for his other son, who disappeared years ago after an argument over the game.  Jenny Agutter co-stars.  Critics generally gave the film decent reviews, but thought it was rather slight.
Director: Carl Hunter

New Streaming Releases:

Artemis Fowl--8%/31--Disney was, to some extent, probably happy that the pandemic allowed them to send Kenneth Branagh's adaption of the popular book series to Disney+, instead of seeing it bomb over Memorial Day.  Newcomer Ferdia Shaw played Artemis, a young boy who is forced to get involved with fairies and magic in an attempt to rescue his father (Colin Farrell) from an evil fairy (voiced by Hong Chau).  Josh Gad and Judi Dench co-star.  The film got nearly unanimously awful reviews, but attracted a lot of views on the streaming service.
Director: Kenneth Branagh

Da 5 Bloods--92%/82--Spike Lee followed up BlacKkKlansman with this even more acclaimed drama for Netflix, in which four Vietnam veterans (Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, and Isiah Whitlock Jr.) return to the country both to find a fortune in gold and the remains of their squad leader (Chadwick Boseman), all of which they were forced to leave behind a half-century earlier.  There, they are forced to confront the past, as well as the present.  Jonathan Majors, Johnny Trí Nguyễn, Mélanie Thierry, Paul Walter Hauser, Jasper Pääkkönen, and Jean Reno co-star.  Because of the strong reviews, there were hopes that the film would earn numerous Oscar nominations, including for Lindo, but ultimately, it only earned one nod, for Score.
Director: Spike Lee

The King of Staten Island--75%/67--Judd Apatow, who had successfully turned Steve Carrell, Seth Rogan and (briefly) Amy Schumer into movie stars, helmed this starring vehicle for Pete Davidson, in which he played a wannabe tattoo artist living at home with his widowed mom (Marisa Tomei).  When Tomei begins dating a local firefighter (Bill Burr)--which happens to be the career of Davidson's father--he might be forced to grow up, whether he wants to or not.  Bel Powley, Maude Apatow, Steve Buscemi, Pamela Adlon, Jimmy Tatro, Kevin Corrigan, Moisés Arias, Machine Gun Kelly (billed as Colson Baker, his real name), and Robert Smigel co-star.  Despite some complaints about the length, the film got generally good reviews, and proved to be a solid hit on the video on demand market.
Director: Judd Apatow

Think Like a Dog--70%/NA--This family comedy stars Gabriel Bateman as a young science genius whose latest experiment results in him and his dog (voiced by Todd Stashwick) being able to read each other's minds.  He uses this newfound ability to help his parents (Megan Fox and Josh Duhamel) repair their marriage, but the experiment also attracts the attention of the military and an untrustworthy tech guru (Kunal Nayyar).  The film got better-than-expected reviews.
Director: Gil Junger

Five Years Ago--June 10, 2016:

New Wide Releases:

The Conjuring 2--1/$40.4 million/$102.5 million/28/80%/65--The second installment in the hit horror franchise (third, if you count Annabelle) has paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) heading to London to investigate a haunting in a house there, which might be a demon, or might just be a hoax perpetuated by a teenage girl (Madison Wolfe).  Given that the franchise treats the highly dubious accounts of the Warrens' investigations as gospel, it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out who the culprit is in this telling.  Frances O'Connor, Simon McBurney, Franka Potente, and Bonnie Aarons co-star.  While not nearly as big of a hit as the original in 2013, this still proved to be a solid success.  Several more spin-offs (including The Nun, a prequel involving the demon from this one) would follow, and a direct sequel would come out in 2021.
Director: James Wan

Warcraft--2/$24.2 million/$47.4 million/70/28%/32--A magic portal allows orcs to escape from their homeworld to invade a kingdom of humans, and it's up to Travis Fimmel, Ben Foster, and Dominic Cooper to save the kingdom.  Paula Patton, Clancy Brown, and Ruth Negga co-star.  Critics were thoroughly confused by the CGI-heavy story, and after an OK opening, attendance fell off so dramatically that it became one of the few films to be unable to double its opening weekend gross, though the film did much better overseas.  That North American performance, however, is probably why that, despite the entire film being exposition and set up, a sequel has yet to be made.
Director: Duncan Jones

Now You See Me 2--3/$22.4 million/$65.1 million/48/34%/46--Follow-up to 2013's sleeper hit about criminal magicians has the team (Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Dave Franco, and Lizzy Caplin, replacing the absent Ilsa Fisher) being recruited by a young tech billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) to steal a valuable microchip, except of course there's a twist, than another twist, and then another twist, and then another twist...Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine return from the first film, and Sanaa Lathan also joins the cast.  Critics, who weren't all that enamored with the first one, really didn't like this one, and it grossed only a little more than half of its predecessor.
Director: Jon M. Chu

Ten Years Ago--June 17, 2011:

New Wide Releases:

Green Lantern--1/$53.2 million/$116.6 million/24/26%/39--After the disappointing Blade: Trinity and the oddball interpretation of Deadpool in X-Men Orgins: Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds discovered third time in a comic book movie was not the charm with his first--and last--outing as the DC superhero.  An origin story, he played a test pilot who is chosen to be the next Green Lantern for this sector of the galaxy, where he has to stop both a scientist who went mad (Peter Sarsgaard) after absorbing negative energy and an evil alien entity (voiced by Clancy Brown).  Reynolds's future wife Blake Lively, Mark Strong, Angela Bassett (playing the role Viola Davis would play in the Suicide Squad films), Tim Robbins, Geoffrey Rush, Michael Clark Duncan (in his last major movie), Taika Waititi, Jon Tenney, and Jay O. Sanders co-star.  The film was a critical failure, and after a solid start, it fell off very fast, enough so that the sequel hook at the end remains unfulfilled.  After one more failed comic book adaption (R.I.P.D.), Reynolds would finally have a success in the genre with the more faithful interpretation of Deadpool.  Both that film and Deadpool 2 are filled with jokes about this film.
Director: Martin Campbell

Mr. Popper's Penguins--3/$18.5 million/$68.2 million/49/47%/53--In this family comedy, Jim Carrey played a standard issue businessman-who-is-too-busy-for-his-family who inherits a bunch of penguins from his late father.  As they run wild in his New York apartment, his attempts to donate them to a zoo is complicated by his son (Maxwell Perry Cotton) thinking they're his birthday gift.  Does Carrey learn to value his family above his job and do the right thing with the penguins?  Of course!  Carla Gugino, Madeline Carroll, Angela Lansbury, Clark Gregg, Philip Baker Hall, Dominic Chianese, Jeffrey Tambor, and David Krumholtz co-star.  While this wasn't a big hit, it would prove to be Carrey's second-highest grossing movie of the teens.
Director: Mark Waters

Fifteen Years Ago--June 16, 2006:

#1 Movie:

Cars--$33.7 million

New Wide Releases:

Nacho Libre--2/$28.3 million/$80.2 million/29/40%/52--Jack Black starred in this comedy as a cook at a Mexican orphanage who becomes a masked wrestler in order to earn funds for the orphans, knowing that he will be expelled if his secret gets out.  Ana de la Reguera, Peter Stormare, and 12-year-old Moises Arias, making his film debut, co-starred.  Critics were underwhelmed, but Black's star power helped make it a moderate hit.
Director: Jared Hess

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift--3/$24 million/$62.5 million/46/38%/45--The only entry in the franchise (other than the spin-off Hobbs & Shaw) to focus on a character other than Vin Diesel's Dom or Paul Walker's Brian, this one has budding street racer Lucas Black shipped off to live with his dad (Brian Goodman) in Tokyo, where he promptly gets involved in the street racing scene.  Sung Kang, who would become a franchise regular, makes his debut in the series in this installment, as a fellow street racer (and old friend of Diesel's) who befriends Black.  Sonny Chiba, Zachery Ty Bryan, and Shad Moss (then still billed as Bow Wow) co-star.  While reviews were in line with the first two franchise entries, this is by far the lowest-grossing film in the series, and the only one to finish below $100 million domestically, which explains why the studio brought back both Diesel and Walker for the next installment in 2009.  This also marks the franchise debut of director Justin Lin, who would go on to direct three other entries in the series, including F9, which brought Black and Moss back into the fold.
Director: Justin Lin

The Lake House--4/$13.6 million/$52.3 million/62/35%/52--In this (sort of) reunion of the stars of Speed, Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves play people living in the same titular house two years apart from each other, but are somehow able to send letters back and forth to each other via their magical mailbox.  Christopher Plummer, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Dylan Walsh, and Shohreh Aghdashloo co-star.  Critics largely scoffed at the film, but audiences responded, turning this into a modest hit.
Director: Alejandro Agresti

Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties--7/$7.3 million/$28.4 million/98/12%/37--The 2004 live-action adaption of the long-running comic strip was a surprise hit, but audiences avoided the sequel in droves, even with the return of Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield.  In this one, he travels to London, where he inadvertently trades places with a lookalike cat (voiced by Tim Curry) who has inherited a giant estate, to the chagrin of Billy Connolly, who is next in line.  Breckin Meyer and Jennifer Love Hewitt return from the first film, and joining them are Ian Abercrombie, Roger Rees, Lucy Davis, and Ben Falcone.  Voice actors include Bob Hoskins, Rhys Ifans, Vinnie Jones, Richard E. Grant, Sharon Osborne, Jane Leeves, Jane Horrocks, and Roscoe Lee Brown.
Director: Peter Hewitt

Twenty Years Ago--June 15, 2001:

New Wide Releases:

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider--1/$47.7 million/$131.2 million/15/20%/33--This adaption of the mega-popular video game cast Angelina Jolie, in her first undisputed lead role since her Oscar win nearly a year and a half earlier, as the titular Croft, who has to go searching for a couple of secret artifacts to keep them out of the hands of the Illuminati, who hope to use them to rule the world.  A then-largely unknown Daniel Craig played her love interest, and Iain Glen, Noah Taylor, and Jolie's real-life father, Jon Voight co-starred.  While critics scoffed, audiences turned out, as this would become the highest-grossing film based on a video game, a record it would manage to keep until Pokemon: Detective Pikachu finally topped it in 2019.  A direct sequel followed in 2003, and a reboot without Jolie would arrive in 2018.
Director: Simon West

New Limited Releases:

Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India--$0.8 million/208/95%/84--In what was the most expensive Indian film made up to that point, a poor farmer in 1893 (Aamir Khan) is challenged by a British officer (Paul Blackthorne) to a cricket match over his town's overdue taxes, which Khan accepts, even though no one in town knows how to play cricket.  Arriving to help is Blackthorne's sister (Rachel Shelley) who offers to teach them the game and also harbors feelings for Khan.  Like most Indian films, it was long--nearly 4 hours--and a musical, but still became a critical smash in the United States and did decent business, even breaking out of theaters primarily showing Bollywood product and into art houses.  The following spring, it would receive an Oscar nomination for Foreign Language Film.
Director: Ashutosh Gowariker

Sexy Beast--$7 million/137/87%/79--A retired gangster (Ray Winstone), enjoying life at his Spanish villa, is visited by a former underworld colleague (Ben Kingsley) who wants Winstone to return to London to participate in a heist organized by crime boss Ian McShane.  When Winstone tries to turn down the offer, he discovers that Kingsley has no intention of heading back without him.  This thriller got solid reviews, which most of the praise being directed at Kingsley, and became an art-house hit.  Kingsley would be Oscar nominated for Supporting Actor.
Director: Jonathan Glazer

Songcatcher--$3.1 million/166/74%/63--Janet McTeer starred in this drama as a musicologist in turn of the (last) century rural North Carolina, who, while visiting her sister (Jane Adams, also in The Anniversary Party), decides to research the local music and preserve the traditional ballads and songs, many of which had come over from Great Britain centuries earlier.  Aidan Quinn, Pat Carroll, David Patrick Kelly, and 13-year-old Emmy Rossum, in her film debut, co-starred.  The film, which had premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, and then sat on the shelf for a year and a half, earned decent reviews and turned a small profit.
Director: Maggie Greenwald

Expanding:

Atlantis: The Lost Empire--2/$20.3 million

Twenty-Five Years Ago--June 14, 1996:

New Wide Releases:

The Cable Guy--1/$19.8 million/$60.2 million/23/54%/56--Jim Carrey had his first significant misstep since becoming a superstar with Ben Stiller's black comedy in which Carrey played the titular cable guy who befriends the recently dumped Matthew Broderick.  However, Broderick quickly realizes that Carrey doesn't understand the meaning of boundaries.  Leslie Mann, George Segal, Jack Black, Diane Baker, Charles Napier and Eric Roberts co-star, with cameos from many of Stiller's friends, including Owen Wilson, Janeane Garofalo, David Cross, Andy Dick, Bob Odenkirk, Kyle Gass, and Stiller himself.  Critics gave it rather mixed reviews, and after a solid opening weekend, business fell off rather quickly.  Stiller wouldn't direct another feature film until Zoolander in 2001, but Carrey would bounce back quickly, as his next film would be Liar Liar.
Director: Ben Stiller

Moll Flanders--10/$1 million/$3.5 million/166/43%/NA--This bit of summer counterprogramming based very loosely on the 1722 novel by Daniel Dafoe, stars Robin Wright as the titular character, an orphan woman who is forced into prostitution by madame Stockard Channing.  Morgan Freeman and Brenda Fricker co-star.  Any hopes that this might be an early Oscar contender were dashed by the mixed-to-negative reviews, and because films like this really need strong reviews to do well, especially during the summer, it quickly disappeared.  
Director:  Pen Densham

Thirty Years Ago--June 14, 1991:

New Wide Releases:

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves--1/$25.6 million/$165.5 million/2/52%/51--Kevin Costner followed up his Oscar-sweeping Dances With Wolves with the umpteenth retelling of the story of the legendary 12th century thief, who robbed from the rich to give to the poor.  In this telling, Costner is a nobleman returned from the Crusades to discover that the evil Sherriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman) has hanged his father (Brian Blessed).  Retreating into the woods, he eventually takes the leadership of a group of outlaws while romancing Maid Marion (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio).  Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater, Geraldine McEwan, Michael Wincott, and Jack Wild co-star.  Critics were mostly negative, with Costner's American-accented performance being especially criticized.  Audiences didn't care, as it ended up as the second-highest-grossing film of 1991.  The Original Song "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You", which, as performed by Bryan Adams, was a #1 hit, was Oscar nominated.
Director: Kevin Reynolds

New Limited Releases:

Bright Angel--$0.2 million/219/80%/NA--This modern-day western stars Dermot Mulroney and Lili Taylor as two teenagers on a road trip from Montana to Wyoming--him to get away from his dysfunctional parents (Sam Shepard and Valerie Perrine), her to help someone in jail.  Along the way, they meet an assortment of dangerous characters.  Burt Young, Bill Pullman, Benjamin Bratt, Mary Kay Place, and Delroy Lindo co-star.  This drama got a lot of acclaim, but was little seen.
Director: Michael Fields

Kiss Me a Killer--NA/NA/NA/NA--This modern-day noir starred Julie Carmen as the femme fatale, who, after seducing the new singer (Robert Beltran) at the nightclub owned by her husband (Guy Boyd), encourages Beltran to knock off Boyd.  Of course, things don't go smoothly (they never do in movies like this).  Despite attracting some good reviews, this quickly sank into obscurity.
Director: Marcus DeLeon

Thirty-Five Years Ago--June 13, 1986:

New Wide Releases:

Back to School--1/$8.9 million/$91.3 million/6/86%/68--This week's still-beloved summer comedy #1 was this vehicle for Rodney Dangerfield, in which he plays a successful, albeit uneducated, businessman who, after learning his son (Keith Gordon) is thinking of dropping out of college, decides to go...well, read the title.  The impressive supporting cast includes Sally Kellerman, Burt Young, Robert Downey, Jr., Paxton Whitehead, Sam Kinison, Terry Ferrell, M. Emmet Walsh, Adrienne Barbeau, William Zabka, Ned Beatty, Robert Picardo, author Kurt Vonnegut as himself, and Edie McClurg, in her first still-beloved summer comedy of the week.  The plot is largely there to support an endless series of Dangerfield one-liners, which audiences and, to a lesser extent, critics, ate up, as this became one of the surprise smashes of the summer.
Director: Alan Metter

Ferris Bueller's Day Off--2/$6.3 million/$70.1 million/10/80%/61--This week's still-beloved summer comedy #2 cast Matthew Broderick as the titular, fourth-wall breaking Ferris, who decides to play hooky from high school (for the 9th time that semester) by going on a whirlwind trip to Chicago with his girlfriend (Mia Sara) and best friend (Alan Ruck), much to the chagrin of both his sister (Jennifer Grey) and his school's dean (Jeffrey Jones), both of whom are determined to catch him in his lie.  Cindy Pickett, Lyman Ward, Charlie Sheen, Ben Stein, Kristy Swanson, Max Perlich, Louie Anderson, and Edie McClurg, in her second still-beloved summer comedy of the week, co-star.  While reviews and box office, while excellent (this would be the highest-grossing film John Hughes would direct), weren't as good as Back to School's, this one would end up with more staying power in pop culture.  A short-lived sitcom version (co-starring a then-unknown Jennifer Aniston) would come and go in 1990.
Director: John Hughes

The Manhattan Project--9/$1.5 million/$3.9 million/120/50%/61--Getting the short end of the stick this week was this thriller, about a teenager (Christopher Collet) who, determined to prove that the scientist boyfriend (John Lithgow) of his mother (Jill Eikenberry) is secretly running a weapons laboratory instead of a medical research lab, steals a container full of plutonium and decides to make a fully altruistic bomb.  Cynthia Nixon, John Mahoney, Robert Sean Leonard (billed without his middle name), Gregg Edelman, and Richard Jenkins co-star.  This one, to a large extent, got lost amid the glut of sci-fi in the mid-80s (coming out a week after fellow sci-fi flops SpaceCamp and Invaders From Mars probably didn't help).
Director: Marshall Brickman

New Limited Releases:

Mona Lisa--$5.8 million/102/97%/85--Low-level gangster Bob Hoskins is assigned by boss Michael Caine to be the bodyguard for expensive prostitute Cathy Tyson.  As the two become closer, Hoskins agrees to help look for Tyson's missing friend (Kate Hardie), even though doing so could put him in conflict with both his boss and Hardie's pimp (Clarke Peters).  This highly acclaimed British neo noir would be an art-house hit in America and would earn Hoskins what would turn out to be his only career Oscar nomination, for Actor.
Director: Neil Jordan

Belizaire the Cajun--$1.1 million/167/64%/NA--This low-budgeted 1850s-set comedy-drama, filmed on location in Louisiana, stars Armand Assante as the titular Belizaire, who gets caught up in the battle between the native Cajuns and the invading whites, who want the land for themselves, especially after he gets accused of a crime involving his former girlfriend (Gail Youngs).  For a low-budgeted film, it attracted a solid supporting cast, including Will Patton, Michael Schoeffling, Stephen McHattie, and Youngs's then-husband Robert Duvall.  While not a smash, it had a solid run on the art-house circuit.
Director: Glen Pitre

Forty Years Ago--June 12, 1981:

New Wide Releases:

Clash of the Titans--$41.1 million/11/67%/59--This rather old-fashioned spectacle, in which the half-god Perseus (Harry Hamlin), son of Zeus (Laurence Olivier) runs afoul of a vengeful sea goddess (Maggie Smith) and has to fight, among others Medusa and the Kraken to save his beloved (Judi Bowker), proved to be a surprise success at the box office.  Burgess Meredith, Claire Bloom, and Ursula Andress co-star.  This would be the final film with stop-motion special effects from the legendary Ray Harryhausen.  A remake would be released in 2010.
Director: Desmond Davis

Disney's Summer Derby--*/*/**/**--With school mostly out nationwide and the studio's two big summer titles, The Fox and the Hound and Condorman, still several weeks away from release, Disney decided to pass the time by re-releasing some of their old live-action hits.  What you saw depended on where you lived.  The northern half of the country got a double feature of the 1976 body-swapping comedy Freaky Friday, with Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster as the mother and daughter whose wish to live each other's lives comes true, with the previous year's Herbie Goes Bananas, in which Cloris Leachman and Harvey Korman join the sentient Volkswagen Beetle in South America.  In the South, moviegoers got to see a double feature of 1973's The World's Greatest Athlete, with Jan-Michael Vincent as the titular athlete, a (white) African who is recruited by a couple of coaches (John Amos and Tim Conway) to play for their college, and 1977's Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, as Dean Jones and Don Knotts race Herbie from Paris to Monaco.  Bananas and Monte Carlo finished 101 and 102 for the year, with a total gross of $1 million each, while Friday finished 109, with a gross of $0.3 million.  No grosses were reported for Athlete.
**Friday--70%/51, Bananas--40%/55; Monte Carlo--60%/38; Athlete--NA/NA
Director: Gary Nelson (Freaky Friday), Vincent McEveety (Herbie Goes Bananas & Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo), Robert Scheerer (The World's Greatest Athlete)

History of the World, Part I--$31.7 million/19/59%/47--Mel Brooks, who had previously tacked westerns, horror, Hitchcock, and silent films, spoofs historical epics in this all-star comedy, which, rather than sticking with one time period, does sketches in numerous ones, from the Stone Age up to the French Revolution.  Among Brooks's co-stars were his usual troupe of Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn, Harvey Korman, and Cloris Leachman, along with Gregory Hines, Sid Caesar, future director Barry Levinson, John Hurt, Beatrice Arthur, Nigel Hawthorne and narration by Orson Welles.  While the film wasn't the critical or commercial success that Brooks's 70s films had generally been, it did solid business.  40 years later, Hulu has announced that Brooks will write and produce History of the World, Part II for the streamer.
Director: Mel Brooks

Raiders of the Lost Ark--$212.2 million/1/95%/85--The rare movie that actually lives up to all of its hype, this rollicking adventure from director Steven Spielberg and executive producer George Lucas (who wrote the story with Philip Kaufman, while Lawrence Kasdan wrote the screenplay) introduced the world to Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), a globe-trotting archeologist who, in 1936, is tasked by the US Government in recovering the legendary Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis, led by rival archeologist Paul Freeman, are able to get their hands on it, a quest requires Indy to reunite with ex-love Karen Allen.  John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Elliott, and Alfred Molina, in one of his first major movies, co-star.  The film was a sensation, earning rave reviews and becoming only the fourth film in history to exceed $200 million at the domestic box office (the first three were Spielberg's Jaws and Lucas's Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back).  It would be nominated for 8 Oscars, including Picture, Director for Spielberg, Cinematography, and Score, and would win for Art Direction, Sound, Editing, and Effects, as well as a special Oscar for Sound Effects Editing.  Raiders would be followed by three sequels (with another, starring Ford, who will be 81 when its released, scheduled for 2023), a TV series, countless video games, comic books, novels, and theme park attractions.
Director: Steven Spielberg

New Limited Releases:

High Risk--NA/NA/NA/NA--This action comedy was able to attract an unusually starry cast.  Four friends (James Brolin, Chick Vennera, Bruce Davison, and Cleavon Little) get the bright idea to travel to South America to rob a drug kingpin (James Coburn).  The actual heist is surprisngly a success, but it turns out that actually escaping the country is the hard part.  Anthony Quinn, Lindsey Wagner, and Ernest Borgnine co-star.  The film got surprisingly decent reviews, but thanks to the distributer going bankrupt, it ended up being little-seen.
Director: Stewart Raffill

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