The Squeeze (1978)

Lee Van Cleef & Karen Black - What a Pair!!!, 18 May 2005

A retired safecracker (Lee Van Cleef) is lured out of retirement by the son of one of his buddies who is in trouble. The job - steal a load of diamonds from a warehouse safe. Things go terribly wrong. Van Cleef is wounded and everyone else is dead. Now, Van Cleef must elude the man who set-up the job, the man who owns the warehouse, and the police. It seems that Van Cleef's only ally is a crazy woman (Karen Black) who is the only other resident in an abandoned apartment building.

Over the years I've noticed that when the material he's faced with isn't first rate, Lee Van Cleef can overact with the best of them. And that's what he does here. There are many scenes where Van Cleef makes some of the most ridiculous faces for no purposes other than overemphasizing his point. It gets very distracting. But in The Squeeze, he's outdone by Karen Black. She chews scenery like her life depended upon it. I just had to laugh a couple of times (inappropriate times) because it was all too funny. I suppose that most of the blame for the acting weaknesses could be traced directly to the script. The characters are given some really lame lines.

The story itself is quite nice. There's one double-cross after the next. The ending really caught me off guard. Just when I thought I had things figured out, I was hit with another loop. The plot is the primary reason I've rated this movie as I have. If you're a fan of heist films, much of The Squeeze will appeal to you.

I would be remiss if, even in this short review, I didn't mention the soundtrack. The music is pure (bad) 70s disco. The main theme song is especially annoying and presents everything that was wrong with music from this period. Even worse, it's stuck in my head - Oh the Pain!

6/10