This isn't one of Peter Sellers' best films, though it still is worth a look. It's a crime spoof about a gang that dresses up like the police and robs the crooks once they've committed their jobs. This aspect of the film is okay, but what I really liked was how the police and organized crime worked together to stop this masquerading gang! They didn't seem to like how this gang upset the unwritten rules between the cops and the robbers so they combined resources to find and stop them! The best part of this was the role played by Lionel Jeffries as the Inspector. While he was a supporting actor in the film, his performance really overshadowed Sellers'. That isn't to say that Sellers did a bad job--he was wonderful as the criminal mastermind. But Jeffries played the stupid policeman so well that you couldn't help but look forward to when he was in the film.
This is a decent movie with a very good ending, but the film falls far short of the wonderful and near-perfect Ealing crime comedies (THE LAVENDER HILL MOB and THE LADYKILLERS). About the only serious negatives are that there are some real lulls in the film--it just didn't sustain the humor throughout.
This is a decent movie with a very good ending, but the film falls far short of the wonderful and near-perfect Ealing crime comedies (THE LAVENDER HILL MOB and THE LADYKILLERS). About the only serious negatives are that there are some real lulls in the film--it just didn't sustain the humor throughout.