Quick Change

TCM did a prime time spotlight on actor Bill Murray on his 75th birthday last September. One of the movies that they ran was new to me: Quick Change. As always, the plot synopsis sounded interesting, so I put it on my DVR to watch it and write up a post on it.

As the movie opens, Bill Murray's character Grimm is on a subway in Manhattan, wearing a clown outfit and made up like a clown, complete with balloons and big clown shoes. But that's not all he has. He's got a bunch of explosives attached to an alarm clock wrapped around his torso, and is carrying a gun. He makes his way to the Intercity Bank, where the guard doesn't want to let him in because it's close enough to closing time to let in new customers. So of course Grimm forces his way in, considering that it's obvious what he's planning to do.

Grimm proceeds to pull out his gun and tell everyone in the branch that this is a robbery. One of the bank workers, however, presses the silent alarm, so the police come with a large contingent led by police chief Rotzinger (Jason Robards) and his second-in-command, along with a ton of cops setting up a cordon around the building and basically besieging the place. Grimm has planned for this, however, what with the explosives. He's also put everybody in the bank in the vault and locking it, setting up negotiations with the police outside that eventually result in Grimm releasing three of the hostages.

But we learn that this is a ruse. As the second and third hostages are outside while the police are planning to take them for debriefing, the woman, Phyllis (Geena Davis) sees that there's a bit of white paint on the third hostage's face. That's because the third "hostage" is actually Grimm, who was using this as a way of getting out of the bank branch despite it being otherwise surrounded. Phyllis, the woman with him, is actually an accomplice as well as Grimm's fiancée. The man who was let out as the first hostage, Loomis (Randy Quaid), is also in on the bank plot, and left the scene to get his car and pick up Grimm and Phyllis for the getaway.

Grimm's plan was to get the three of them on a plane to Tahiti, with the money taped to each of their bodies, getting away while Rotzinger would still be under the impression that Grimm was in the bank with his hostages. To keep up that ruse, Grimm goes to a pay phone to call Rotzinger, these being the days before caller ID, especially on the sort of oversized mobile phone that Rotzinger is using. However, this is where the first crack in Grimm's plan occurs. Loomis is a bit incompetent, and accidentally honks the car horn, a sound that Rotzinger can clearly hear and gives him the impression something is up. Rotzinger becomes more suspicious when the debriefing occurs, and the first three hostages released are not there. And how did Grimm get out anyway?

Meanwhile, everything that can go wrong for our three bank robbers does. Some of the road signs have been taken down, so they can't find the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to get to Kennedy Airport and their flight to Tahiti. Then they get robbed by a con artist; their car gets towed for being illegally parked; and on, and on, and on in ways that are ever more absurd. Will they be able to escape, or will Rotzinger nab them? Fortunately, the movie was made well after the disintegration of the Production Code, so it's not a foregone conclusion that the robbers have to be caught.

Quick Change is a fun idea, and a movie that's mostly successful in being entertaining. However, it's a movie that I felt lost a bit of stem in the third act, mostly because things get too absurd and manic. We get it already. Then again, it's not a bad movie, just one that I felt could have been a bit better.