Review of The Opportunists

"The Opportunists" is finely acted. Obviously the writer/director gave strict orders to all the actors to use a subdued style. I usually prefer movies with this style because it makes the movie more realistic although a little less exciting. This is the main reason why "Rosemary's Baby" is a great film while "The Exorcist", although more exciting, is a very good film. Back to "The Opportunists". The director's overall style, mood, and pace were excellent too. Christopher Walken's performance was the best part of the movie but that shouldn't surprise anyone. Then why does this movie go beyond failing miserably? Warning!, the criticism I am about to give will give away key plot twists. The movie fails miserably because it completely falls apart during the middle of the heist scene where Christopher Walken's partner, shockingly and (I claim) intentionally, locks Walken inside the money vault of an armored car company then presses the alarm button. This act of sabotage would make perfect sense if Walken's partner either stood to gain by the act or was out for revenge. Not only does Walken's partner not gain by this treacherous deed; he greatly hurts himself! At the moment when the partner slammed the vault door between himself and Walken, the following facts existed: * The partner had one small bag of cash (the viewer is never told how much) in his hand, while there were many more bags and boxes of cash remaining in the money vault where Walken stood. If I had to estimate the percentage of cash in the partner's bag vs. all the cash, I would say 10%. In other words, Walken's partner could have gotten about 25% (because there were 4 partners overall) of all the cash in the vault but opted for just 10%. Was he blind? Did he not see all the boxes of cash inside the vault? * There was no time pressure on Walken and his partner to collect all the cash in the vault because once Walken had solved the combination lock, the alarm was knowingly disabled. Also, the 2 guards who were sitting just outside the vault were in on the caper. So they had hours (maybe as many as 6) to collect all the paper cash (we are not talking about heavy gold bars or large paintings). Walken and his partner could have transferred all the cash to a car outside the building in about 15 minutes! * By intentionally locking Christopher Walken in the vault, the partner knows that Walken will be apprehended. Doesn't the partner realize that if Walken is apprehended, Walken and the 2 security guards will tell the police everything they know about the partner including a physical description, his accent (Irish), and where to find fingerprints that he left in Walken's house and business! Since the partner was clearly reducing his own chances of a clean getaway with a large take, then the only other explanation for intentionally locking Walken and the money in the vault was revenge. This scene would make sense if it turned out that the partner had a secret hatred for Christopher Walken. I was expecting the movie to show that many years earlier (when Walken was a steady safe cracker) that Walken either stole from the partner's father or bumbled some aspect of a heist which caused the partner's father to do jail time thereby forcing the partner to grow up fatherless. But no such explanation ever came to fruition. Less than an hour after the partner runs away from the alarm with the money bag in hand, he enters a train station ready to continue his getaway but never gets on the train. He just turns around, exits the train station and eventually apologizes to Walken. The final 1/2 hour of the movie is so detached from reality that it ruins all the good aspects of the earlier part of the movie: * Christopher Walken is let out of jail with no bail! * The main police investigator hires Walken to repair his own personal car (this is not undercover work)! * The owner of the armored car company doesn't press charges (doesn't want bad publicity concerning laundered money) * Walken and his treacherous partner become more friendly as if nothing happened! * The 4 thieves get to keep and spend their small take with no apparent pressure from the police! * Basically everyone lives happily ever after! Keep in mind that this movie is clearly not directed for kids who might overlook an illogical plot twist like it has. In a world where most movies fall apart at the end, I nominate this one as the all time king of movies which fall apart at the end and are not science fiction. Another way of stating this award I bestow on "The Opportunists" is it has the highest ratio of believability in the beginning of the movie to believability in the end of the movie. This movie's only usefulness should be as required viewing at film schools to demonstrate the tendency to rush through the end of movies thereby ruining them. If the writer/director was trying to make a study of a smart, talented safe cracker surrounded by 3 incompetents as opposed to 2 incompetents and 1 saboteur then this scene still does not make sense because Walken's partner did not act incompetently when he shut the vault door; he clearly acted intentionally. The words that he used and his facial expressions clearly show him closing the vault door intentionally. I finally came to the logical conclusion (just to stop my mind from short circuiting) that the writer/director may have been stating that sometimes a person can be so incompetent that he appears to be acting as a saboteur, even though he is not. If the director intended for the partner to lock Walken in intentionally then can anyone out there answer why the partner locked Walken in?