Now yes to a certain extent it is unfair to say a journeyman like Rosenberg was not Terrence Malick. With Malick at the helm such imagery might have been poetic, with Rosenberg it is merely perfunctory. Everytime something fails to happen, the movie cuts to long shots of Newman and Marvin shot at magic hour with great billowing clouds in the background. Failing to strike sparks with each new non incident. The film meanders around from one non event to the next.

Powerful waves of apathy radiate from the screen whenever he appears. I’ve never seen old Lee phone it in, in quite the same way before. Marvin on the other hand simply never commits to the role. Try as he may Newman can’t extinguish the thought behind those blue eyes. Who did seem dumb enough to genuinely try to get away with something like that.). And as he’s played by Newman he inspires no pity, the way a more convincingly idiotic leading man might have done (Say Victor McLaughlin in The Informer. His character is such a dim bulb, that he isn’t likable. Part of the problem is Newman had fantastic range, but one thing he never was dumb. The kind of dullness that arrives not merely from a lack of narrative events, or rooting interest, but kind that arises from lack of any sort of investment either onscreen or off. It might be philistine of me to say it, but Pocket Money is just an aggressively dull movie. He enlists his partner Lee Marvin, to help him with said drive, and the rest of the movie is spent waiting patiently for something, anything to happen. Newman plays a dimwitted cowboy, conned into taking charge of a cattle drive down in Mexico, by Strother Martin, the man who Newman once had a failure to communicate with during much happier Rosenberg directed days.

And this is true, but they’re both able to get a lot closer to that vanishing point then I would have cared to guess. And no movie involving Terrence Malick can be completely devoid of artistic value. No movie starring Paul Newman and Lee Marvin can be completely devoid of entertainment value. Now I know what you’re thinking because I was thinking it to. There’s really no pussy footing around this one, Pocket Money is a fairly dreadful film.

With a script by the legendary by Sasquatch measure, Terrence Malick? I don’t know. Why Haven’t I Watched It?: A movie staring Paul Newman and Lee Marvin. Why’d I Buy It?: Came in The Paul Newman Boxset I bought.

Paul newman lee marvin