Samurai Shane At Point Blank ...

Rating: Null/10 (24 September 2011)

... and oh, did I forget Charely Varrick. This foreign-born director has seen a lot of movies, but then so have I, which is why I was not so much surprised as wondering what's so hard about coming up with an ORIGINAL Screenplay. George Steven's Shane (1953) John Pierre Melville's Le Samuai (1967 - same year as Point Blank) were released three years before this guy was born and Don Siegel's Charley Varrick came out when he was three years old so he must 1) have a good DVD library or 2) have access to vintage movies. Pick of the bunch are Shane - mysterious loner, possibly 'outside' the law, takes it on himself to help a rancher and his family, wife and son; he has a clear, unstated mutual attraction with the wife which is never consummated, and Le Samurai - hit-man loner, lives alone, eschews ties to minimise risk of getting caught. In Point Blank a lone guy takes on organised Crime and kills them off one by one and in Charley Varrick a career criminal robs, by mistake, a bank used by the mob as a laundering service. All these elements are present in Drive and possibly others I've missed. It's not a bad movie just not original.