This underrated crime thriller is excitingly directed, and cunningly fitted together from set pieces, each of which piles on the tension. The central figure's crime lies in knocking over a bank belonging to the Outfit. Macklin (Robert Duvall) and his brother Ed get three years for the bank job, but the Outfit is still waiting for them when they come out. Ed is dispatched by an assassin, but Macklin turns the tables on his hit-man and determines to bleed the Outfit for all he can get. Enlisting the aid of another bank-raid confederate (Joe Don Baker), he embarks on a ruthless and skilful game of skin the syndicate. The raids that follow are accomplished with staggering precision by director John Flynn, but the core of the film's appeal is that the non-action scenes are equally memorable.

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