Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best suspense film you've never seen!, April 10, 2007
I first saw this movie on HBO back in 1982, and it struck me as the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made. The Silent Partner is a deft mixtue of suspense and humor, with enough twists to keep one guessing until the very end. I used to own it on LaserDisc, and the film was grainy and the colors rather faded. I am pleased to report that the film has aged well, and the colors on this dvd are far richer than they were on Laser or HBO. The grain is still there, but it is not a distraction. If you like suspense films and have not seen his movie, you owe it to yourself to see it.
One last word: I wish Amazon would not allow reviews for a product prior to its release. There are a number of reviews here that were written long before the DVD release ( April 3). The film is, in fact, presented in a widescreen (1.85:1) aspect ratio. The cover is terrible, and whoever designed it Obviously never saw the film, but what is contained within the case is well worth watching. I wish people had the sense and integrity to actually view a product prior to posting a review of it.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent!, September 14, 2000
The Silent Partner is a suspenseful, well done thriller with some interesting twists and turns. Guaranteed to hold the attention of the viewer throughout. Very original. Convincing performances by Gould as a milque toast bank manager "gone bad" and his nemesis Plummer, a masochistic killer and bank robber. Nudity and some shocking violence. Highly recommended, but for adult viewing.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Daylight robbery, May 9, 2007
And the award for most misleading DVD cover of the year goes to Lions Gate for The Silent Partner, which scales new heights of dishonesty in its attempts to sell this very smart 1978 Canadian thriller as a Reservoir Dogs heist movie with its image of three black-suited robbers, smoking gun in hand, striding across a US hundred dollar bill, while below even the still of a huge open bank vault is from a completely different movie. By contrast, the film is set in a small shopping mall branch of a Toronto bank which Christopher Plummer's very unpleasant solo bank robber knocks off disguised as Santa Claus only to find that Elliott Gould's clued-in bank teller has pulled a fast one on him and kept $48,000 of the $50,000 haul himself, cuing an increasingly nasty game of cat and mouse where it turns out that the much underestimated Gould's cunning is more than a match for Plummer's cruelty as the stakes constantly rise. Half victim, half apprentice, Gould's boringly inconspicuous everyman finds himself surprisingly adept at crime, taking his lead from Plummer's tactics and excelling at using them against him, and not showing much more concern over any victims that fall violently by the wayside than his tormenter/inadvertent teacher. The nastiness is there but never overplayed in Curtis Hanson's smart screenplay and Daryl Duke's confident direction avoids showing off at the expense of the story. Ingeniously gripping stuff, its well worth checking out - but perhaps not recommended for any tropical fish lovers.
No extras, but a decent 1.85:1 widescreen transfer.
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