The Outfit

Earl Macklin comes out of prison and learns his brother has been killed. The reason is simple: the bank they robbed years ago belonged to the mob. With his old partner he decides to take the organisation's money, casino by casino and courier by courier, until it backs off. The film is not interested in revenge. It is interested in method: Macklin does not get emotional, does not talk and does not negotiate; he simply cuts the system's money channels. The film makes no attempt to make him likeable. The form is seventies crime: motel rooms, filling stations, empty roads and short, quiet violence. Little music and even less dialogue. John Flynn directed, from one of the Parker novels Donald E. Westlake wrote as Richard Stark. The character's name was changed for the film; Westlake only allowed the name Parker under particular conditions. Robert Duvall plays Macklin, Joe Don Baker his partner and Karen Black his girlfriend. Familiar faces from the classical era fill out the cast, a choice that deliberately gives the film an older texture. Who it is for: viewers who like hard seventies crime and Parker adaptations. Who it is not for: anyone after depth of character. Macklin is the same man throughout, there is no development, and the female character is almost purely a device.