Where the Money Is (87 mins, 15) Directed by Marek Kanievska; starring Paul Newman, Linda Fiorentino, Dermot Mulroney
There is a mysterious kind of movie title that is not explained in the film itself and demands some special knowledge. A Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs and O Brother, Where Art Thou? are examples. The amiable Where the Money Is, directed by Marek Kanievska, a British filmmaker best known for Another Country , from a script by three Americans, belongs in this category.
Nobody uses the phrase in the film and, surprisingly, it is not in any dictionary of quotations I possess. But it is generally attributed to the legendary American criminal Willie Sutton, who spent most of his life in jail and the rest of it planning heists. Asked in old age why he persisted in robbing banks, Willie replied: 'Because that's where the money is', and it is clear that Henry, the elderly thief played by Paul Newman, is modelled on Willie Sutton.
This clever comedy-thriller begins with Henry, a convict well into his seventies, being temporarily installed in a public geriatric hospital in Oregon. He is speechless and paralysed from a stroke two years before, and thus considered harmless by the state and no threat to the largely female inmates. But his notorious career staging ingenious hold-ups coast to coast causes a flutter among his fellow patients and excites the special interest of Carol (the seductive Linda Fiorentino), an attractive nurse whose marriage to her boorish high-school sweetheart, Wayne (Dermot Mulroney), has gone sour.
The frustrated Carol suspects that Henry is feigning his condition, or perhaps unconsciously hopes he is. Anyway, after a leisurely, interestingly detailed opening half-hour, she rumbles Henry.
Having studied autohypnosis, this brilliant, amoral loner has managed to convince doctors, psychiatrists and warders that he has been permanently incapacitated by the stroke.
'It's not enough to play possum,' the sprightly charmer tells his two new pupils. 'You've got to be possum.' That is as good a description of method acting as you can get; Newman and Henry are consummate performers whom you rarely catch acting.
Henry subsequently masterminds from his wheel-chair his last big heist. To assist him, he inducts Carol and Wayne into the art of theft, the way Sean Connery does Catherine Zeta Jones in Jon Amiel's Entrapment and Burt Reynolds does Casey Siemaszko in Bill Forsyth's Breaking In (American movies that also happen to have British directors).
Wayne wants the wages of sin, but lacks the spirit to enjoy transgression. Carol, on the other hand, becomes radiant, is renewed and liberated by embarking on a life of crime, in a manner reminiscent of Peggy Cummins in the subversive classic Gun Crazy and Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde . However, a violent bout of vomiting before setting out on the final job reveals suppressed qualms and fear.
The chosen target is not a bank but an armoured car, and the scheme is to hijack one and then themselves make the nightly collection at supermarkets, bars, filling stations, an amusement park and a sports stadium. 'You don't rob the route, you rob the crew,' says Henry, explaining why they need to study the behaviour of the armoured-car drivers. His object as always is to carry out the operation without shooting; in fact, almost the film's only act of violence comes in some well-deserved revenge on a crooked male nurse.
There are some holes in the plot and a few improbabilities in Where the Money Is, but generally this beguiling film goes its antisocial way in a stately, magisterial manner befitting the age and stature of its protagonist and its star.
The script is peppered with sharp dialogue that Newman handles impeccably. He tells a cautionary tale about a friend's greyhound on a Florida racetrack that caught up with the hare and was electrocuted - 'He got what he wanted, but not what he expected.'
His best line comes when the police surround them at Fiorentino's house and a sheriff barks through a megaphone: 'Come out with your hands on your heads.' Newman's blue eyes sparkle: 'You haven't lived till you've heard someone say that to you.'
Newman, who is 75, has said that this will be his last movie. One hopes not, as he has done fine work during the past decade. He emerged on the screen 45 years ago under the shadow of his fellow Actors Studio graduates, Marlon Brando and James Dean, and because of Dean's early death and Brando's professional indolence, he has long since outstripped them. He has also been, while living an orderly life and conducting a disciplined career, a greater rebel than either.
Newman has proved himself equally adept at comedy and drama (think of The Sting and Butch Cassidy), though only occasionally has he been an orthodox hero, as in Exodus, one of the few occasions he has played a Jew.
His great strength over the years is the insight he has brought to outsiders, anti-authoritarian rebels as different as the eponymous heroes of Hud, Hombre and Cool Hand Luke .
On the other hand, he gave one of his finest performances in Mr and Mrs Bridge, playing the very embodiment of middle-class, small-town conformity.
Possibly his greatest film is The Hustler (1961), which established him as an actor of stature and, 25 years later, in The Color of Money, Newman was able to revisit the same character, to see how he had changed and grown, and at last win an Oscar.
