Grand Slam
(AKA: Ad ogni costo)
(1968)
review by Head Cheeze

Truly great heist films are a rare breed. Most entries in the genre are bogged down by too much emphasis on gizmos and convoluted or implausible schemes that rely on sheer coincidence and luck than actual ability and technique. The best heist films are character driven and believable, and Giuliano Montaldo's Grand Slam is a great example.

Set in Rio De Janeiro during the city's annual Carnival celebration, Grand Slam revolves around a cadre of elite thieves brought together by Professor James Anders (Robinson), a seemingly quiet and reserved school teacher, to crack into a vault containing ten million dollars in precious stones. The team includes the requisite electronics expert (Riccardo Cucciolla), a safecracker (Georges Rigaud), a violent thug (Kinski), and the "face man" J (Robert Hoffman) whose job is to distract a shy vault company executive, Mary Ann (Leigh) while the rest of the team gather intel on the premises. The twists and turns begin as each of the "professionals" all begin to display their own personal agendas, culminating in the sort of head spinning ending that is the trademark of the genre.

Grand Slam has a lot going for it. It's stellar international cast work together marvelously against the backdrop of the electric atmosphere of the world's biggest party, and Montaldo doesn't waste a minute setting the heist in motion. It's only when the heist is completed that the film momentarily runs out of gas, but things heat up again toward the film's conclusion-a coda that features one of my personal favourite twists. The score by Ennio Morricone is an unusually sparse but extremely effective concoction and expounds upon the film's tenser moments. Fans of films like Ocean's Eleven, Sneakers and other lightweight and borderline comical heist flicks may be taken aback by the dark undertones of Grand Slam, which eschews the course de rigeur "gang of likeable criminals" for a group of selfish and downright nasty thugs, but this lends more credibility to the film in my mind- after all, criminals aren't supposed to be a cuddly lot!! Grand Slam also shows a fair amount of technical savvy for it's time, with it's gimmickry well on this side of believability. Sure, there are the occasional moments where a suspension of disbelief need come into play, but nowhere near as often as in films such as Soderbergh's sloppy Ocean's Eleven remake.

Blue Underground releases the film with a gorgeous 2.35:1 transfer enhanced for 16x9 sets. The digitally remastered mono soundtrack is crisp and clear with no audible distortion. As for extras, this time out Blue Underground only give us a trailer and stills gallery, an unusually sparse amount of supplements for the company, but the film itself is the reason to pick this disc up.