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52 Pick-Up was directed by John Frankenheimer, written by Elmore Leonard and John Steppling, who adapt from Leonard’s novel, and stars Roy Scheider, John Glover, Clarence Williams III, Robert Trebor, Ann Margret, Vanity, and Kelly Preston. It follows a husband who has to outwit the criminals who are blackmailing him and his wife.

The Plot: Prior to the 1990s, when filmmakers started adapting and taking inspiration from author Elmore Leonard’s works en masse, it was rare for a movie to utilize his blackly comedic style. It’s not an easy balance, something shown by this movie’s promising, yet ultimately middling story.

Well-off steel magnate Harry (Scheider, excellent) clocks out and tries to visit his mistress, young stripper Cini (Preston). However, he’s met by three masked men that reveal tapes of his affair with the girl and ordered to pay them all $105 thousand to keep the recordings private. 52 Pick-Up isn’t narratively original, using old hat conflicts as a basis for an ongoing intimidation game with decreasing stakes. After the encounter, Harry confesses to his wife, politico Barbara (Margret), and decides not to pay the money, which gets Cini killed and puts Harry on a sleuthing path to find out more about his blackmailers.

Procedural plot elements litter the first act, as Harry meets with Cini’s colleague Doreen (Vanity) to dig up clues, but the process is formulaic and the results unsurprising. The men responsible for the power play are Alan (Glover), Bobby Shy (Williams III), and Leo (Trebor), and Frankenheimer essentially makes Harry’s dealings with the three men into average, semi episodic threads that tear 52 Pick-Up apart, figuratively speaking. Focusing on Harry’s quest further eliminates scope, as Barbara barely factors into the plot until the climax of the feature.

Little of the narrative registers beyond establishing scenes, with the script steadily working through the motions of a blueprint crime movie plot. The ending has some flair, but the narrow vision keeps things largely generic.

The Characters: Individually, there are plenty of acceptable, if forgettably written characters in 52 Pick-Up, but as a full cast, a lot of them are at odds with the overall dramatic stillness of the feature because of their broadness.

What makes Harry an above average protagonist is how insular he is around just about everyone in his life. From his employees to his wife, he always projects a cool attitude, no matter the situation, except to his lawyer. On the surface, this makes him less likeable, but the script makes subtle notes that this is for the benefit of those around him. Harry’s stubborn nature reinforces that idea, shown by the way he only tells Barbara the basics of his plight. This helps to spur the plot into motion; paired with Scheider’s terrifically measured performance, he’s the highlight of the movie.

It’s the criminals – Leonard’s specialty – who don’t mix with the rest of the feature. Their personalities are hyperbolic yet cliche, making Alan a hot-tempered maniac more interested in than doing much thinking, but is supposed to be the ringleader of the operation, whereas Bobby Shy is a brooding drug addict that frightens everyone around him, and Leo is a loudmouthed weasel who enjoys corny jokes. They’re far too broad for the movie. Because of this, they barely gel as a unit, lost in Frankenheimer’s hands.

Barbara gets some trace development as a woman who explores career possibilities but would much prefer to have a simple life as a couple with her husband. A scene between her and Harry illustrates heartbreak well, but without much screentime beyond use as a plot device, she ends up like Doreen and Cini: forgettable. It’s a shame, with the caliber of writing Leonard is known for and the estimable cast, all of whom give strong performances, that these characters aren’t better.

The Crime: A lot of time is spent observing the crooks scheming and working their angle and with Harry as he hunts for names and faces, but most of this side of 52 Pick-Up falls flat.

In order to extort their quarry, Alan and company almost solely rely on Harry’s infidelity, but this plan is unnecessarily convoluted from their side of things. Add the movie’s failure to capitalize on its established characterizations and plot points, and it’s a purposeless pretzel knot of thievery. The crew kill Cini, painstakingly set up Harry for her death, cut him off from assistance, and ask for money when this could all end with him in prison due to their own actions. With just a little thought, it collapses further, as they could’ve just threatened Barbara’s career instead. Upon first glance, it’s fine that their efforts are overcooked since they still work, but because of the doofy nature of the men themselves, it doesn’t seem like the kind of plan they’d even be capable of creating.

On the other side of the movie is Harry’s sleuthing, which is relatively easy and uninteresting when it would be more effective to make this the more complicated side of the coin. Since he already knows where Cini worked and that she knew Doreen, his initial plan to pay the doorman for knowledge goes out the window. Subsequently, Doreen’s presence ruins this phase of the movie; it continues on, of course, with a slight increase in interest once Harry questions Leo, but every interrogation and act of investigation is a foregone conclusion. The only real surprise is how Leonard and Steppling make a conscious decision to lower the stakes with the villains’ allowance to receive only half of their initial “offer.”

Backwards and unengaging, the crime element of 52 Pick-Up is a misfire of a sure thing. Atmosphere is tangible, but neither the chief character nor the crooks work all that well.

The Technics: Although made by a director whose biggest critical and commercial successes were behind him, and produced by a company whose catalogue is not exactly known for stringent attention to detail, their collaboration proved that they were both still capable of technical prowess, as little is outwardly wrong with the feature.

What’s supposed to set an Elmore Leonard adaptation apart from others in the cinemascape is the included undercurrent of black comedy. This is largely absent in Frankenheimer’s direction (even though numerous lines of dialogue point to the original intent), keeping 52 Pick-Up tonally unsure of itself at the best of times, and outright toneless at the worst. Because of the otherwise generic writing and refusal to cut out overlong shots (a scene of Harry driving up a winding road goes on for a minute, and nudity is emphasized), the length is very much felt.

On the most physical of levels, there’s nothing to scoff at in the production. While undoubtedly sleazy, there’s an immense level of style and setting to the picture. Much of this is owed to the habitually gliding and slow zooming camerawork by Jost Vacano and Stephen Ramsey, but the production design by Philip Harrison certainly helps. Juxtaposition of seedy clubs and gorgeous, naturally lit outdoor scenes lend a personality to the movie that it otherwise bafflingly lacks.

It’s far from unwatchable, but 52 Pick-Up wastes its most precious elements in service of being a generic feature. The production should’ve played “go fish” for a rewrite and re-edit.

56/100