They
are stealing Deutschmarks not Euros, using walkies instead of cellphones. This
is the late 1980s, but most of the bank heist business still holds up pretty
well. One thing remains a metaphysical certainty, weaponized marital resentment
can be deadly and unpredictable. Bank robbers make strange bedfellows in
Dominik Graf’s The Cat, which screens
as part of the Graf retrospective at Anthology Film Archives.
Jutta
Ehser is the inside person, who will help the mysterious Probek rob her husband’s
bank. It is safe to say their marriage has been strained lately. Probek is the
eye in the sky, who will keep the two gunmen in the bank informed of the police
activity outside from his vantage point in a luxury high-rise hotel. Junghein
and Britz are the two suckers he recruited to take the bank employees hostage.
Voss is the coolly cerebral cop in charge of the standoff. He and Probek are
evenly matched, but Junghein and Britz are in serious trouble.
Of
course, Frau Ehser is not just collaborating Probek to hurt her husband. She is
also carrying on a steamy affair with the criminal mastermind, as the opening
scene so vividly establishes. Frankly, The
Cat is like the Body Heat of heist
movies—rather surprisingly, since it is German.
It
is also super-sleek and lethally effective. Graf makes hay with the
claustrophobic settings, while screenwriter Christoph Fromm’s adaptation of Uwe
Erichsen’s novel keeps the betrayals and reversals of fortune coming at a
healthy gallop. Frankly, it is easy to see why The Cat was a box office hit in Germany. Its canny use of Eric
Burdon & the Animals’ “Good Times” also propelled the single back up the
German charts.
Götz
George is as slick as the film is as the delightfully cold and manipulative
Probek. He is a villain worthy of great era of high-concept Eighties cinema. Gudrun
Landgrede matches him step for step as Ehser, the femme fatale. Joachim Kemmer
is perfectly world-weary and hard-bitten as Voss, while Ulrich Gebauer really
provides the secret ingredient, pulling off several surprises in a surprisingly
smart and nuanced performance as Herr Ehser.
Shame
on everyone who was scouting for the major studios in 1988, because The Cat would have been a perfect
property for a Hollywood remake. Maybe it still is. It certainly hooks viewers
quickly and leaves quite an impression. Highly recommended for fans of 80s
heist-thrillers, The Cat screens this
Saturday (5/25), at Anthology Film Archives.
