The Split

Colorful caper film boosted by great cast . . .
It's a treat to see this many excellent actors all in one movie. Jim Brown convincingly plays a no-nonsense operator who assembles a diverse team to rob the L.A. Coliseum of more than half a million dollars. Recommended if you like any of the featured actors. Each has a standout moment that reveals how different his/her character is from the others in the film. The cinematography is vivid, and the location photography at the Coliseum only makes you wish there was more of it. The plot (no spoiler) takes an odd turn toward the end, which may account for the film's lack of popularity. But the cast and the other positive attributes (Quincy Jones' score, for example) far outweigh this slight drawback.

Saadly as dire as I remember it from original release!
I saw this film on release in 1968, hoping that it would be as good as the prior year's Point Blank based on another Richard Stark novel, since when I had read nearly all the Parker novels then available in the intervening year. With a cast of well known faces in support (Oates, Borgnine, Sutherland (in an early film for him), Hackman and Klugman) the omens looked good but sadly on re-seeing the film again in 2012 it is all as dire as I remember it from the original cinema release!

The key problems are the script sacrifices the hard edge of the source Stark novel to venture into early Blaxploitation territory with Jim Brown and Diahann Carroll who provide zero of the menace or tension needed in the lead roles to make this crime caper and double cross plot work. The best actor in the whole film is a manipulative Julie Harris who shows the type of cunning that the lead characters roles lack. Add to that a very disjointed and edited shoot with too many late 60s/early 70s set...

Great cast poor movie
The whole reason I was determined to see "The Split" was because of it's exceptional cast. Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, Donald Suherland, Jim Brown, Jack Klugman. Some of my favorite actors, a few of them I will gladly see any thing that the are in, but sadly "The Split" is not worthy of their talent. The movie is obvious, familiar and dull, based on a novel by the great pulp novelist Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake) and featuring a nice score by Quincy Jones, it is not a total waste, just a disappointment. For historical significance it is interesting as the first movie released with an "R" rating, but it is pretty tame by today's standards, and only the least bit interesting.

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