Charley Varrick: The Last Independent Against the Mob

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Don Siegel called Charley Varrick (1973) one of the films he was proudest of, and it is easy to see why. It is a crime picture built entirely out of competence — the hero’s, the villains’, and above all the director’s — and it moves with the unfussy professionalism it keeps praising in its characters. Coming a year after Siegel and Clint Eastwood remade the American cop movie with Dirty Harry, this is the quieter, cannier cousin: a small, hard, funny thriller about a man who accidentally steals from people you cannot steal from, and has to out-think everybody in the frame to stay alive. Its unlikely secret weapon is Walter Matthau, playing dead straight, in a role he reportedly never warmed to and never bettered.

Walter Matthau - vo.rs

Charley Varrick: The Last Independent Against the Mob