{"id":1985,"date":"2024-08-05T15:27:39","date_gmt":"2024-08-05T15:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1985"},"modified":"2024-10-14T13:42:48","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T17:42:48","slug":"52-pick-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/05\/52-pick-up\/","title":{"rendered":"52 Pick-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"52 Pick-Up<\/strong>\u00a0(1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cannon\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 111 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, some graphic nudity, some sexual content, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Frankenheimer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Elmore Leonard and John Steppling\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Gary Chang\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jost Vacano\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 7, 1986 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret, Vanity, John Glover, Robert Trebor, Clarence Williams III, Kelly Preston, Lonny Chapman, Doug McClure, Alex Henteloff.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $5.1M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0The crime drama 52 Pick-Up<\/strong>, an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel by John Frankenheimer (Black Sunday), contains one of the best lines I\u2019ve ever heard. It occurs when Roy Scheider confronts John Glover\u2019s villain for the first time face-to-face. He smacks him around and says, \u201cThere\u2019s something about your face that makes me want to slap the s*** out of it!\u201d Tough guy dialogue this cool could only come from a character in an Elmore Leonard story.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s easy to understand why audiences weren\u2019t exactly enthralled by\u00a052 Pick-Up<\/strong> in \u201986. It was billed as an action movie, but it\u2019s really not. The characters don\u2019t engage in the OTT exploits typically displayed by the likes of Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Norris. It takes place in a universe where violence is still shocking and unpleasant and people express panic and fear in knowing they\u2019re in over their heads. Frankenheimer, working from a screenplay by Leonard and John Steppling, immerses his characters in a world of sleaze and amoral behavior. He also provides us with one of the most vile, reprehensible villains you\u2019re ever likely to encounter. That would be Alan Raimy (Glover, The Evil That Men Do), the slimy pornographer trying to blackmail our hero with an incriminating videotape. This guy doesn\u2019t walk into a room, he slithers in. He is the very definition of \u201ccreep\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Successful industrialist Harry Mitchell (Scheider, All That Jazz) has it pretty good. He lives in a big house with his wife Barbara (Margret, The Cincinnati Kid) who\u2019s just announced her candidacy for city council. His happiness is threatened when three unknown individuals hold him at gunpoint and threaten to show a videotape of him with his young mistress Cini (Preston, Secret Admirer) to his wife unless he pays them $105,000. He can\u2019t go to the police because it would destroy his wife\u2019s political aspirations, so he decides instead to come clean with her about the affair thereby neutralizing their threat.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Not easily deterred, the criminals up the ante by murdering Cini on video and framing Harry for it. The new offer is this, $105,000 a year for life or they\u2019ll release the fabricated evidence to the police. Still not wanting to bring the police into it, Harry conducts his own investigation. The trail leads him to Raimy and his two accomplices, sex club owner Leo (Trebor, My Demon Lover) and drug-addled pimp Bobby Shy (Williams, The Mod Squad). Now that he knows who he\u2019s dealing with and they know he knows, Harry sets about turning the tables against them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I think the main problem with 52 Pick-Up<\/strong>\u00a0is that it was made in the wrong decade. It feels more like a 70s movie (the book was published in \u201974) although it definitely has a 40s\u00a0film noir<\/em>\u00a0flavor too. I didn\u2019t fully appreciate\u00a0it when it first came out because, like most people, I had certain expectations that weren\u2019t met. My opinion changed when I rewatched it in summer \u201992. I no longer cared that it didn\u2019t move at lightning speed. It\u2019s an adult <\/em>crime drama with not-so-upright characters in an increasingly desperate situation. On one side of the coin, you have an ordinary businessman who did something immoral and stupid. On the other, you have a well-dressed sleazebag exploiting the businessman\u2019s bad judgment call. It\u2019s a battle of wits and wills as Harry methodically turns Raimy and his dimwitted accomplices, a whimpering sycophant and a violent street hood, against each other.<\/p>\n

\u00a0They say a movie is only as good as its villain. 52 Pick-Up<\/strong>\u00a0is made so by Glover but what can I say about him and his performance and I haven\u2019t already. Raimy is in my top ten Sleaziest Bad Guys. The rest of the cast is great too. Scheider, an actor I\u2019ve always liked, is good as a hero that isn\u2019t exactly upstanding. He has a relatable quality that makes him an ideal lead in a movie like 52 Pick-Up<\/strong>. Ann-Margret shows she\u2019s fully capable of playing dramatic characters with her performance here. She strikes the right balance between anger and hurt over her husband\u2019s indiscretion. The scene where Harry tells her about his affair is especially effective mainly due to her. Vanity (The Last Dragon) has some good scenes as a prostitute who provides Harry with crucial information. As always, she\u2019s HOT! Williams positively oozes menace and danger as Bobby Shy, a dirtbag who makes up for his lack of intelligence with a taste for sadistic violence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Leonard has a gift for terse dialogue and colorful characters. It really shows in 52 Pick-Up<\/strong>, a solid adaptation of his own novel. Frankenheimer saturates it with genuine suspense and gritty, bare-fisted action. I\u2019d even say it\u2019s one of his best movies. He makes great use of the sleazy criminal underworld, a place marked by sex clubs, porno theaters and parties with topless attendees. It has a few pacing issues, but Frankenheimer compensates with a really cool ending. I wish they still made them like this.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

52 Pick-Up\u00a0(1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cannon\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 111 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, some graphic nudity, some sexual content, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Frankenheimer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Elmore Leonard and John Steppling\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Gary Chang\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jost Vacano\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 7, 1986 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret, Vanity, John Glover, Robert Trebor, Clarence Williams III, Kelly Preston, Lonny Chapman, Doug […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hidden-treasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/52-Pick-Up-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1985"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2787,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions\/2787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}