Ed-Shullivan Retired NFL Hall Of Famer Jim Brown, and an all star cast including the likes of Diahann Carroll, Donald Sutherland, Ernest Borgnine, Walter Matthau, Warren Oates, Julie Harris, James Whitmore, and even with eye candy Joyce Jameson could not hold my attention long enough in this rather drab action/crime film. I guess the producers felt with the salaries they were spending on an all star cast the movie couldn't help but be a box office bonanza. Unfortunately a weak and an overdone and predictable script outweighed the star power featured in this slow moving action/crime film.Jim Brown sets out to first test and then recruit his band of four (4) crime specialists which takes up the first 30 minutes of the film's storyline. The next 30 minutes or so is where it gets really boring as this crew of crime specialists sets out to rob the LA Coliseum while the NFL Los Angeles Rams are on the field playing the Green Bay Packers. Sounds interesting doesn't it? Don't hold your breath. This part of the film was a snorefest.Now we get to the latter half of the film where the gang is supposed to split their heist six ways, equal shares including one share for Julie Harris for financing the heist. But wait...someone kills the only innocent party who is holding the money for the mastermind thief Jim Brown, and accidentally the murderer stumbles upon Jim Brown's heist money, a cool $550,0000.00. So the gang turns on each other and are really peeved at Jim Brown because they think he double crossed them all. Sound like a familiar plot? Oh Yeah. Although the crimes intended location is different, an NFL football stadium (to encourage fans of the NFL's Hall Of Famer running back and film star Jim Brown to see this film) compared to the 1960's Ocean's 11 film in which the heist takes place in a Las Vegas Casino. The two films comparison ends right there.The best part of the film was the music score by Quincy Jones. Other than that the film would be a pass for me. Disappointing to say the least.I give it a 4 out of 10 rating.

JasparLamarCrabb Donald Westlake's book is turned into a rather dull movie by director Gordon Flemyng. Jim Brown leads a rag tag team of respected character actors on a heist to steal from the LA Colliseum. Edited with a sledge hammer, the movie appears to be missing scenes. The jump cuts are not stylish, they're really odd. Brown is OK, but the supporting cast is terrific, including Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, Jack Klugman and Donald Sutherland. Julie Harris pops up (aping Geraldine Page as a tough talking crime broker). It's not bad, but it's certainly forgettable despite the colorful cast. Diahann Carroll and James Whitmore are wasted in a really lurid subplot.

Paul Andrews The Split starts as career criminal Mac McClain (Jim Brown) arrives back in Los Angeles, there he hooks up with his ex-wife Ellie (Diahann Carroll) & his associate Gladys (Julie Harris). Mac says he needs 'a big job' & Gladys tells him about a plan she has to steal half a million dollars in takings from the 80,000 plus seater Colleseum football stadium during the match between the Los Angeles Rams & the Green Bay Packers, the match has no advance ticket sales so every seat has to be paid for in cash on the day at the gate. Mac likes the idea & sets out recruiting a gang to pull it off, the muscle is supplied by Bert Clinger (Ernest Borgnine), the wheel man is Harry Kifka (Jack Klugman), the weapons man & shooter is Dave Negli (Donald Sutherland) & the professional hi-tech thief, lock picker & safe-cracker is Marty Gough (Warren Oates). Everything is prepared & the day of the heist arrives...Directed by Gordon Flemyng this late 60's crime heist action thriller is unfairly rather obscure but is worth the effort to track a copy down, although you can compare The Split to The Italian Job (1969) since they are both 60's heist films The Split was made & released a year before. The script by Robert Sabaroff was based on the novel 'The Seventh' by Donald E. Westlake can be divided into three chunks, the first third of the film revolves around the recruiting of the team with some fun set-pieces to make sure each member is up to the task, the second third of the film is my favourite when they carry out the heist & there's that feeling that you root for them & you want to get away with it & all the close calls they have & watching the plan unfold is pretty fun, then the final third of the film is perhaps the weakest as several random events come together & tear the thieves apart & it becomes a rather dull runaround after the money which goes missing through no fault of their own but does obviously cause problems as they don't know who to trust. That's about it really. I would have been happy if The Split had ended after the gang had stolen the money & got away with it but there's this tacked on ending a lot of which feels very random, like how did Ellie's landlord know she had the money? Why leave the money in such an exposed place? Then there's the ending when everyone gets shot & it just all seems rather pointless. The plot wouldn't work now of course, what with the amount of CCTV's & security, the fact a lot of people pay by credit card & I don't understand why the gang don't try to cover their faces. They rob the place without any mask's or gloves so if the hostages don't identify them their finger prints surely would? For such a well planned robbery that's quite a big oversight, isn't it?Director Flemyng does a good job, he keeps the film moving along & it always feels like something is happening. The character's are also very good with each member of the gang having a distinct personality & getting at least a few minutes screen time to develop it although McClain is hard to like as the lead character since he only seems interested in serving himself. The Split was apparently the first film to be given an 'R' rating by the MPAA thanks to some fun fights, a few shoot-outs, a bit of mild bad language (although the 'N' word is used here in a casual fashion, something unthinkable these days especially when the IMDb flags it as a 'Prohibited Word' as I have just found out...) & a bit of blood. There's also a neat car chase here as well. It's somewhat surprising that The Split is such an obscure film with it's crowd pleasing heist plot & the top drawer cast but it is, last night I saw a full widescreen 2:35:1 Panavision print of this & while the colours were a bit washed out & a bit pastel it looked very nice.Technically the film is very good, it has good production values, good stunt work & nice cinematography. The one aspect of The Split I don't like is the music, it's horrible & dates the film more than anything else in it. Damn, just look at that cast. There aren't many films that boast a cast as good as The Split. Jim Brown, Ernest Borgnine, Julie Harris, Warren Oates, the peerless Jack Klugman, Donald Sutherland & Gene Hackman. The acting is top notch from one of the best cast of character actors your ever likely to see in the same film.The Split is a good heist film that starts out like The Italian Job but goes in a significantly darker direction although not to the films overall benefit in my opinion. I liked it as a one time watch & the cast are great but I am not sure I would want to see it again anytime soon.

gridoon Near the beginning of this film, there is a fistfight, but it's not exciting because we don't know why the two men are fighting. A little later, there is a car chase, but it's not exciting either, because we don't know who's chasing whom or why. Later still, we find out the answers to those questions, but two potentially good action scenes have been wasted. And then the movie turns into a standard heist flick....thankfully only for a while. The focus here is not on the actual heist, but more on the aftermath. And it's there that the movie finally goes in unexpected directions. There is, for example, the bizarre scene in which a man gets off on shooting someone with a machine-gun. There is the memorable image of a white sheet that gradually "absorbs" the blood of the body that's underneath it, and red spots start appearing on it. And there some neat plot twists along the way, mostly involving a character (I won't say which) that enters the picture when you least expect him to. If the whole movie was as good as its final 30 minutes, I'd give it one more star, but for now this gets a ** rating.