The Outfit (1974) is a revenge/crime story starring Robert Duvall as a bank robber released from prison who starts a campaign of terror against the crime syndicate that killed his brother. It turns out that Duvall’s gang robbed a bank that, unbeknownst to them, was mob-owned.
The Outfit is well acted by Duvall (of course) and his fellow 70s stars Linda Black, Joe Don Baker and Bill McKinney (Deliverance and Worst Movie Teeth). Black delivers one of her patented 70s lovable floozies, defined by a concoction of shopworn sexiness, bad luck and unreliability. Baker is especially appealing as Duvall’s buddy.
The cast also stands out for its crew of 1950s film noir veterans: Robert Ryan (mob kingpin), Timothy Carey (chief henchman), Jane Greer, Elisha Cook Jr and Marie Windsor. Then there’s the dependable Richard Jaeckel, whose career bridged the decades. Joanna Cassidy plays Ryan’s bimbo du moment.
I was most pleasantly surprised by the directing of John Flynn, who directed a handful of otherwise pedestrian crime films and action vehicles for Sly Stallone, Jan Michael Vincent and even Steven Seagal. Flynn also did have a knack for working with good actors (James Woods, Tommy Lee Jones, Ned Beatty, Frank Langella, Danny Aiello, Brian Dennehy).
In The Outfit, Flynn shows himself to be a master of the stationary camera, the long shot and off-screen action. The movie opens with a driver stopping at a remote gas station and getting out of the car to approach the attendant. We see what happens in a single shot from roadside, outside the car, looking through the passenger side window and then again through the driver’s side window toward the gas station. We see that there’s another man in the back seat, but we can’t identify him. We only hear the ordinary music on the car radio. Still, we can tell that the driver is asking directions, and we sense that the two men in the car are up to no good.
The two men find their destination, and it turns out that they are hit men. We see them sneaking into position around a home while the dog barks, and then we see them fire shots. We don’t see the victim getting splattered. We just see the dog barking his warning while we are hearing the shots. Then the dog becomes agitated and whines. Finally, in long shot, we see the victim prone. It’s another very effective sequence.
Late in the story, we first sense that something has happened to Linda Black when we see the look in Joe Don Baker’s eyes in his rear view mirror.
The Outfit’s story is a little dated (not as violent as today’s crime films), but Duvall and Baker make for an appealing duo, and Flynn gives the film an interesting look. The Outfit plays this week on Turner Classic Movies and is available streaming from Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.
The trailer slaps together every scene with a gun to make The Outfit look like too much like a shoot ’em up, but it does include a great line reading from Timothy Carey.