Cinema Retro's Lee Pfeiffer reports on the latest unnecessary remake
We hate to be judgmental, but the lack of originality in Hollywood continues to manifest itself with yet another uncalled for remake of an excellent film. This time, it's director Sidney Lumet in the barrel - his terrific 1971 thriller The Anderson Tapes is due to be remade. Naturally, the superb New York locations employed by Lumet in the original are just far too dowdy for today's moviegoers, so the whole enterprise is being shifted to Miami (yawn). Both versions are based on the best-selling novel by Lawrence Sanders that centered on a career criminal, Duke Anderson who is released after a long stretch in prison. He plans an audacious robbery of an entire swanky apartment building using a moving van and a crew of misfits, each of whom has a specialty to bring to the scheme. The hook of the first film was that Anderson's years in prison have made him out of touch with modern technology and he fails to realize that the entire building has been coincidentally - and illegally- wired by the feds who are snooping on unrelated improprieties. The film was regarded as a fine thriller on its initial release, but it took on an added significance the in the next couple of years as the Watergate scandal unfolded and substantiated legitimate belief in paranoia of government eavesdropping. It's doubtful the new version will be able to resonate in the same way. After all, in today's society we simply assume that virtually everything we do can potentially be recorded, even inadvertently, by mini spy cameras, cell phone cameras and ubiquitous surveillance systems. Thus, the only value of the new film is how well it can be constructed as a simple heist drama. We should remain objective and wait and see, but our instincts tell us the usual culprits - countless CGI shots and shootouts- will undermine the plot. What evidence do we have of this? Well, the producer is the same guy who has brought you the Rush Hour movies. 'Nuff said! The original starred Sean Connery, Dyan Cannon, Alan King, Martin Balsam and young Christopher Walken in one of his first screen roles. No casting has been announced, but let's see them try to top that cast. For Cinematical's report, click here.