Silver Bears (1978)

What a waste of my time!!!

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Here's the prob. The book's a lot better. Paul Erdman invented the financial thriller with Billion Dollar Sure Thing and followed it up with this story. Inevitably, it's a 70s caper pic without the physical action. Not a great recipe but it works. The leads are OK. Michael Caine isn't given a lot to work with and Jay Leno shows he was right to take another direction. The supporting roles are much better filled. Joss Ackland and Charles Gray both deliver on cue and whoever plays Donald Luckman comes closer than anyone to the book. On the other hand, Cybil Shepherd's Debbie Luckman is nothing like the book. She's better! In the book, Debbie's a frustrated, embittered bitch. And not without reason but here, she's a suburban child escaping her boundaries but never breaking faith with Donald. Donald's going to be locked up and she's not about to abandon him. But Michael Caine's home is awfully close to the jail ...

Just as I had expected, the IMDb viewer average is fairly low. This is due to several very obvious reasons (which I will nevertheless include here because what is my obvious may not be the average film-goer's obvious by a long shot).Firstly, the movie is good. Movie fans generally have a distaste for those.Secondly, in SB's entire 115 minutes there aren't any action scenes whatsoever. SB is all dialog. Not one punch is thrown, no explosions in sight ("oh no!"), not even someone running from someone else - or just to jog, not even that. The violence is only implied ("oh, shucks!"), on occasion threatened but it never amounts to even one drop of blood being spilled ("not fair!"). This is, of course, unacceptable for the average viewer who cannot sit still for 15 minutes and listen to people talk ("there's nuthin' going' on in this them da here film!"), much less 115 minutes. That's simply asking too much.Thirdly, the abundant dialog is nearly all wheeling-dealing, various schemes being discussed, traps being prepared, capers organized, and so on, i.e. far too convoluted for the typical movie-goer whose favourite movie is something even a frog can understand, something like the IMDb perennial favourite, "The Shawshank Redemption", which these tiny minds consider a complex character study just because there are characters in it that they can study (until they finally grasp even that story). Even the intricate world of international banking and finance becomes a major element of SB, and this must have served as a sort of last straw for those who were already fidgeting nervously in their seats, hungry for bombs to go of, going "whoosh!". ("Booo-riiing!")To top it all off, the final insult to the typical film fan: no anti-Capitalist left-wing message. ("All them bankers and not even a hint of Viva la Revolucion? Me no like!") SB could have been the most talky film in the universe, and dull as hell, but if only it had a typical liberal attack on "Western Imperialism" or something of that propagandist nature, the film-buffy masses would have been quickly appeased and would have forgiven SB for all its imagined "flaws".SB is a very entertaining crime comedy, admittedly without any moments that are belly-laugh-inducing, but with a number of amusing scenes and fun and interesting plot-twists. An excellent cast had been assembled for this overlooked movie, with Caine carrying it all as well as he (nearly) always does. However, in some ways it is Cybill Shepherd who steals the spotlight with the amazing dits, vivaciousness and energy she brings to her role. Jay Leno, who played clips from this movie several times in his show, isn't half-bad as an actor; after all, what would you call hosting that NBC program all these years? That is acting, what else would it be.I can understand the disappointment and anger of a Wes Anderson fan, who perhaps expected more weird-for-the-sake-of-it embarrassing grimacing/mugging by a cast of nepotistic semi-amateurs, but you can always find that in WA's films. No need to expect EVERY comedy to be as awful as that.

"Silver Bears" has something in common with the "heist" or "caper" movies which were popular in the sixties and seventies, but deals with financial fraud and dodgy deals on the money markets rather than an actual robbery. It stars Michael Caine, who also starred in "The Italian Job", one of the best-known caper movies. Here Caine plays "Doc" Fletcher, a sort of financial troubleshooter for the Mafia. (Like most of Caine's characters, Doc is British; Caine has very rarely played an American in any of his films, "The Cider House Rules" being one of the few exceptions). Doc is sent by his boss, Joe Fiore, to buy a Swiss bank through which the Mob will be able to launder their ill-gotten gains.The plot is a complex one, involving not only the acquisition of the said bank (which turns out to be no more than a small office above a pizza parlour) but also an investment in an Iranian silver mine and various complicated financial transactions, not all of which are entirely above board. (The mine would explain the "silver" element of the title; the significance of the "bears" element remains obscure, even if one understands the word in its financial rather than its zoological sense).The late seventies were perhaps not the most distinguished period of Caine's career. In the sixties and early seventies he had made some excellent films in Britain ("Zulu", "Alfie", "The Battle of Britain", "Get Carter"), but he clearly felt that being a major star of the British cinema made him no more than a big fish in a small pond and he wanted to reinvent himself as a Hollywood star. Unfortunately, in his early Hollywood years he often seemed more like a small fish in a big pond and often found himself cast in some dreadful movies.Indeed, Caine himself has described three of the films which he made in 1978 and 1979, "The Magus", "The Swarm" and "Ashanti", as being his worst. (I have never seen "The Magus", but would certainly agree with him about "The Swarm" and "Ashanti", although I would argue that "Blame it on Rio" from the mid-eighties also deserves a dishonourable mention as one of his least distinguished achievements)."Silver Bears" is never as bad as something like "Ashanti", but few would count it among Caine's better films. Certainly, the star tries hard, playing Doc as a Cockney geezer reminiscent of Charlie Croker from "The Italian Job", but never makes him very likable. His leading lady Cybill Shepherd, who plays Doc's love-interest Debbie, was also going through a difficult phase in her career at the time, trying to prove, often without much success, both to the world and to herself that she was something more than Peter Bogdanovich's girlfriend and muse. (Both Caine and Shepherd were to see their careers revive in the eighties; he began to find roles in better films like "Hannah and Her Sisters" and she successfully reinvented herself as a TV actress in "Moonlighting").The film is sometimes described as a "comedy thriller", but I for one never found it either very comic or very thrilling. It lacks the action sequences which can make heist movies exciting, but it shares the main weakness of that particular genre, namely an unsavoury "crime does pay" attitude. None of the main characters seem to have any moral scruples, but none of them end up paying for their sins, apart from one unlucky accountant who is chosen to serve a jail term, largely as a scapegoat for the sins of others. Despite the best efforts of Caine, Shepherd and some other well-known faces such as Louis Jourdan and Joss Ackland, "Silver Bears" is little more than a tawdry movie about tawdry people. A piece of tarnished silver. 5/10

"Silver Bears" is a great little effort from Czech master, Ivan Passer. It's funny well acted and neatly done comedy caper, that wont let you go until the end. I don't know why it was so badly reviewed when it easily counts among the top 20 comedies of the 70's. Michael Caine is great as usual as Cockney mafioso who in order to make a buck for himself gets a green light from Italian mafioso to start a bank in Switzerland in order to launder some funds, but there's a catch. In fulfilling that mission, without getting himself a brand new pair of cement boots, Caine is greatly helped by Louis Jourdan as sleazy Prince Di Siracusa, and an odd couple of blockheads consisting of Jay Leno in his best role to date, apart from the "Tonight Show", and Tony Mascia as Marvin Skinner. Cybil Shepherd is always great as a decoration, and the movie slides along beautifully with turns on every corner. Passer later proved to be great as a director of many layers, showing his skills most notably in the "Cutter's Way", but here he does it strictly by the numbers. Great fun, catch it if you can, if you like comedies with style, you wont be disappointed.