Popular reviews

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  Review by pirateneckbeard ★★½ 4

  I really wanted to like this for so many reasons like 70's British kidnapping movie with a drunkard detective trying to save his ex-wife plus such a great U.K. cast with my man Stacy Keach(Jim Naboth) in the lead. Maybe It didn't work because this was director Michael Apted(Whom I like) first film in a non-documentary style. Certain things felt rushed and connective tissue could have been tighter. I'm not a Brit but I did find that Mr.Keach's accent was atrocious. I do think this movie has some stakes to it and you don't forget that regardless how dumb some of the villains are at times they are quite evil and heartless as well. The final showdown was pretty fun though. I think my expectations might have been to high maybe in time a rewatch could do wonders.

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  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★★ 6

  And so here we are, eight days into 2021 and the first celebrity death to really effect me, Michael Apted.

  As many will no doubt know, Apted began his career as a documentarian for regional TV, my region in fact - Granada. His most career defining and enduring moment arose from these beginnings in fact, the Up series, which recently celebrated its ninth instalment with 63 Up. From those landmark television moments, Apted began to diversify into drama, several Jack Rosenthal-penned productions, some Play For Today's and eventually cinema; The Triple Echo and Stardust. But Apted never lost his documentarian style and it added great strength to many of his cinematic features. Take for example an early scene in this…

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  Review by loureviews ★★★★★ 4

  My first viewing of a British gangster film which deserves better than its current obscurity. Why this is not up there with Get Carter and The Long Good Friday must surely be an accident of circumstance.

  Stacy Keach (excellent) is a hopeless drunk, ex-cop, no mark low-life. When his former wife (Carol White, coming to the end of a short but stellar career) and her small daughter are snatched from the park he is drawn in to help her uptight new husband (Edward Fox) locate her.

  There are some great performances here from an eclectic cast including former Hollywood pretty boy Stephen Boyd (looking tired and seedy and using his native Irish accent), creepy David Hemmings, and a surprisingly good…

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  Review by Joshua ★★★★ 3

  Horrific unflinching moments of violence, Stacy Keach as a washed up drunken ex-cop on a rescue mission, and hardboiled kidnappers David Hemmings and Stephen Boyd. Loved it.

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  Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🐝 ★★★★ 1

  The Fourth Summer of Scam

  "....and Freddie Starr"

  Fuck's sake, hasn't my day been bad enough.

  Thankfully, The Squeeze overcomes the (not) hamster munching unfunny comedy arsehole and Stacy Keach's bewildering attempt at an accent from somewhere within the British Isles to cast itself out as a terrifically sleazy bit of 1970s British crime stuff.

  While America was split between the neo-noir west coast style and the gritty, urban decay east coast style in its crime cinema, British cinema went all out to make its crime films of questionable taste and as vicious as possible. With many censorship laws peeled away, British crime cinema in the 70s was like a kid in a sweet shop except the kid was robbing…

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  Review by Paul D ★★★ 4

  70s Crime Month

  An alcoholic ex-policeman is drawn into a plot which sees his former wife kidnapped and held to ransom in order to force her new husband to participate in the robbery of one of the vans owned by his security company.

  The very first words uttered by Stacey Keach's mouth are 'piss off' and as soon as you hear that you know he's going to go with an English accent and to be fair he doesn't do all that bad a job. Certainly it's much more convincing than Stephen Boyd's Irish accent which doesn't work, even though that's where he originated.

  In fact Keach doesn't do a bad job all around. We meet him being hauled out of…

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  Review by doppelgangerdev ★★★★½ 4

  Jim Naboth is one bad motherfucker. Sure Stacey Keach is perhaps the least believable Brit I have ever encountered. Its still a pretty commanding and physical performance. The Squeeze is certainly a darker Brit crime thriller. One that rolls big on character and uses its violence sparingly. But when it comes YOWZA.

  RIP to Michael Apted.

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  Review by Waldo ★★★★

  The late great British director Michael Apted kidnapping tale is of course UK nasty. Stacy Keach is such a messed up drunk bastard is unbelievable. He gets so beaten up and fucked up, my goodness. An explosive final minutes.

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  Review by JedidiahAyres

  The best new to me 70s crime picture I've seen in a while. Just fucking cold, hard, misanthropic nastiness. Really terrific. Stacy Keach is fantastic.

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  Review by Andrew Male ★★★★ 2

  **SOME SLIGHT SPOILERS**

  "These streets, they don't lead anywhere. There's no way out. Just more streets that look the same."

  The British 70s gangster film in a state of fetid entropy, with every move pointless, every route a dead end.

  "What am I doing," asks Keach's character at one point, "but helping a mean nasty gangster get back his mean nasty wife."

  Much of the film's sense of ruin and despair is down to the casting, with everyone looking absolutely fucked, especially Stephen Boyd (aged 44 and Christ, look at him!), Freddie Starr's gone-to-seed Scouse mod, Carol White (just 33 and in her penultimate film) and a bloated David Hemmings who perfectly represents the film's core visual aesthetic; a stylish…

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  Review by jrhovind ★★★

  Truly nasty bit of gangland kidnapping business; the settings may be London’s seedier neighborhoods, but Apted establishes his vision somewhere between Get Carter’s hard-boiled viciousness and the sweaty griminess of the preceding decades’ cycle of poliziotteschi. We first meet Stacy Keach’s sad, booze-soaked ex-inspector as he’s falling down a subway station escalator into a pathetic, blacked-out heap; most of the film’s tension lies in whether he’s ever even going to be sober enough to get his ex-wife back from the gang of besuited thugs who whisked her away. “I heard you were supposed to be on the dry.” “It’s a dry sherry.” All sweat and regret as he lumbers through the case, strangely stoic as he suffers a bout of…

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  Review by sinbad0910 ★★★½

  While its not on the level of Long Good Friday this is a solid gritty 70s brit kidnap thriller, the kidnap sequence itself being a highlight in its simple effectiveness. £6 for a happy ending seems like a bargain too even in 70s money!