Despite its heavy undertones of satire, irony and social comment, this entertaining film from Sidney Lumet, who has made a string of critical hits from Twelve Angry Men to Network, is basically a caper thriller. Sean Connery gives a fine study of bullet-headed aggressiveness as a professional safe-cracker who is as far removed from James Bond as it's possible to imagine. Still, he does have a bedmate worthy of 007 in the sinuous shape of Dyan Cannon, and the robbery itself provides a thrilling, if black-edged climax.

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