BY TODD GARBARINI
The
Silent Partner (1979)
is an effective thriller that, to the eyes of today's viewer, may not seem all
that intricate or even suspenseful. So many thrillers have been made in the
intervening forty years, specifically heist-based movies, that Partner
may seem derivative, insipid, or even dated given the presence of outmoded
security equipment and the absence of omnipresent cell phones. This could not
be further from the truth as there is a lot of subtext going on for even the
most jaded cerebral viewer to enjoy here.
The
title refers to the protagonist, Miles Cullen, played deftly by Elliot Gould. Miles
leads an unremarkable life as a bank teller in a branch office located inside
of a Toronto shopping mall that is besieged by Christmas cheer and decorations.
As a loner who collects rare fish specimens for his apartment aquarium when he
isn’t cowering from his bank manager, Charles Packard (Michael Kirby), to avoid
being scolded should he make a mistake, he musters the courage to invite his
co-worker Julie (Susannah York) out for a drink only to be rainchecked which
affords him redirecting his attention to the hired and dubious Santa Claus
mascot (Christopher Plummer) who is scoping out the office for nefarious
purposes. Several additional clues tip Miles off that Santa will rob the bank
and he gets the brilliant idea to set aside a huge chunk of the money to take
for himself while Santa takes all the blame. The amount is just shy of $50,000
Canadian dollars which today is roughly four times that amount. The robbery
that inevitably transpires yields little for the police as the security camera
footage fails to capture Santa’s face. One must wonder about the wisdom of the
bank’s sole security guard chasing the perp into the fully attended mall with
his weapon drawn. Recall the security guards unloading their machine guns into
the apartment complex at the beginning of Return of the Pink Panther
(1975) which, incidentally, also co-starred Mr. Plummer? Not smart!
Reikle
(Plummer) gets wind that Cullens stiffed him on the take and he aims to get the
remainder of the money by engaging in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with
Cullens, who proves to be a worthy adversary, surprising even himself at his
newfound ingenuity and ballsy spirit. Much of their fencing takes place between
the telephone booth outside Cullens’s apartment and Cullens’s landline, the
former an obvious prop as it seems awkward and out-of-place but is placed
geographically for the sake of the story. Cullens outwits and entraps Reikle by
landing him back in jail, filling Reikle with the resolve to get out and kill
Cullens.
For
the first time in any contemporary film that I can remember seeing, main
characters ponder aloud as to the insignificance of their lives, wondering
where they are going and what the meaning of life is all about. Julie has
foolishly permitted herself to become romantically entangled with their boss,
knowing full well that he is a married man. When Cullens asks Julie if she is
in love with him, she says yes and then no. She honestly has no idea. Julie,
like so many other people, is looking for something outside of the repetitive,
then-Nine-to-Five existence that befalls nearly everyone once they graduate
high school or college. She ends up in Miles’s apartment for a nightcap and is
perfectly willing to take their friendship out of the Friend Zone until Miles
shuts the situation down for reasons which become apparent later.