Stealing Sinatra

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Stealing Sinatra: is an average movie good for one time watch, from what i have read on the incident they skip a few things. manly the trial and sentencing which makes this story such a folk legend. With out this i fell the story is lacking completion. the other movie "The Night We Called It a Day" is more interest story of Sinatra get up on stage in Melbourne Australia and calling a reporter a "$2 hooker". The hotel gets being besieged by protesters and the unions refuse allowing to fuel planes and yacht to leave until he apologized.

This movie isn't for everybody, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. It probably helped that I grew up in the L.A. area, and the San Fernando valley in particular (I've been to Canoga Park, and driven down Sherman Way!). I loved the way they evoked the Southern CA surf culture, and especially the surf music, of the early 60's. I've always been a big a fan of that era. And has anyone noticed how prevalent 60's surf music still is today? You hear it constantly on TV commercials and in the media. The pre-counterculture 60's period detail in this movie was excellent: clothing, cars, houses, hairstyles etc. It's an almost overlooked time in our history and culture. (As a former valley-boy, I was amazed to see on the end credits that this was filmed in Vancouver B.C!). The real-life story here is no secret. The fun of this movie is in the journey, not the destination. I'm glad they chose to make it as an almost surreal, truth-stranger-than-fiction comedy. This is serious subject matter, but it would have been a total flop as a straight ahead drama. The thrill was in getting to know the perpetrators and in the realization that they were really just regular, likable guys (guys I might have hung out with at one time) doing incredibly stupid things and getting in deeper and deeper. Of course the glue that held the whole thing together was David Arquette. You can have fun just watching him think. I've followed him, on and off, since the Scream movies, and he just gets interestinger and interestinger. I was mesmerized watching him go from friendly to scheming to salesman to wounded in the time it took to light a cigarette. Bill Macy also added depth and dimension to the whole affair and provided a solid foundation for Arquette to stand on. For me, this is an excellent low budget gem, and a movie I never get tired of watching.

True story of the 1963 kidnap of Frank Sinatra Junior. Now we all know the huge, successful story of Frank Senior, in song, dance, movies. And the casino industry, for a short time. Until he had to give it up, for his questionable friendships. Barry Keenan (Arquette) talks his friends Joe and John (Browning and Macy) into snitching the teenage son of Sinatra (Tom Nicholas). Junior was just getting his own musical career going, when he was grabbed at the casino. About two weeks after president kennedy had been shot. And while Frank Senior was filming Robin and the Seven Hoods. The film seems to stay reasonably close to the facts, according to wikipedia. It didn't win any oscars, but just tells the story. Macy is the biggest name here, and gives the best performance, a couple years after Fargo. Directed by Ron Underwood, who has done a mix of film and television. Written by Howard Korder. Currently showing on the roku streaming channel.

(Only light spoilers in here) Stealing Sinatra is a half-slapstick comedy about dimwit kidnappers, dimwit victims, and a few other side-stories thrown in to eat up some time. You will see some poor performances all around in this movie. The drama is forced, and the humor makes no sense. Whether you're watching the kidnappers threaten the victim who won't shut up, or a victim's father responding to the criminal's death threat with "Care for some tea?", none of it is believable. This quite comfortably fits into the "wannabe movie" category. You will also be listening to a repetitive goofy music track throughout pretty much the entire movie. It's quite unprofessional, and adds nothing. It's really just a sad attempt at making an achingly unfunny movie seem somewhat witty. However, if you're able to look past all of this and suspend a lot of disbelief, you might be entertained by the adequate storyline. I voted 4/10.

How well I remember the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra, Jr. which followed closely on the wake of JFK's assassination. At the time I kept thinking why of all celebrities would someone choose Frank Sinatra's family to victimize with all of that man's legal and extralegal resources? Yet three rejects from the gang that couldn't shoot straight actually did that incredible deed which fortunately for them, no harm, no foul and they all got incredibly early paroles. But the story of their trials and jail sentences is not told in this film. One factual error that was made was that the strategy of claiming that the whole thing was a publicity hoax that young Sinatra was in on was one used by their defense attorney later on at trial. The three perpetrators didn't claim that right away. Other than that, William H. Macy, David Arquette, and Ryan Browning are the three kidnappers in a story that sticks pretty factually close to the events as they happen. James Russo does a fine job playing the senior Sinatra, it's like seeing Old Blue Eyes himself. Fortunately the role did not call for singing like Sinatra. Showtime produced this film for their network and the plot centered around David Arquette playing Barry Keenan the organizer of the plot. His rather amoral character is gone into somewhat, the other two roles of John Irwin (William H. Macy) and Joe Amsler (Ryan Browning) are left kind of up in the air by the script. Stealing Sinatra is a factual retelling of one of the strangest events of the Sixties. A bit above average for a made for TV film.

I am a fan of David Arquette, so that is the reason I saw this movie. I didn't really know what to expect, I read other peoples reviews, which weren't the best. However, I think people were being much to critical with this movie. I think that the performances given were great, and believable. The movie was shown in the kidnappers point of view, which in a true story, is very rare. Personally, I think that the performances of the criminals were yes bumbling, but that is simply because the actual criminals were. If you are a fan of someone in this movie, you will enjoy it. This is the type of movie that you watch just to watch and have fun.

Just saw this and it's not as bad as others make it out to be. Yes, Arquette is a minor weak link but otherwise this film has a lot of good things going for it - and frankly I think how the kidnappers is portrayed adds to the realism of the film - I mean you have to be either dumb or crazy to try something like this - or both. Ebert and Roeper gave it two thumbs up and I can see why - it was refreshing to see a story like this told from a lighter angle rather than the melodramatic stance it usually is. Undoubtedly those who didn't "get" the Arquette character missed the flaws in personality which Arquette did portray well... the guy has a screw loose and is as Macy says, "in waaaaay over his head". As far as the directing being a little clunky, I do have to agree, although perhaps its suits this somewhat unconventional storyline. All in all, It was enjoyable until the end, nevertheless it gets 7 stars because it was a little rough around the edges.