In this made-for-TV movie, Andy Griffith plays the superintendent of an apartment building who runs afoul some bank robbers who are planning to hole up in one of the empty apartments and use it as a staging area for their next robbery. The movie isn’t very good. Most of the acting is pretty bad, particularly by the villains, and it just doesn’t have much in the way of actual tension. But the movie does have one real pleasure which is Andy Griffith’s fantastic performance. You know, I hear that Andy Griffith is playing a building superintendent, I just figure he’s gonna be folksy and affable. Nope. The character is actually quite well-written; he’s a deeply unhappy guy who feels like he’s basically unappreciated and wasted in this horrible job. His wife is played by Ida Lupino and he feels like she doesn’t want him to succeed and he can hardly stand to be in the same room with her. He’s a pretty consistent jerk and when his wife leaves at the beginning of the movie to visit her sister, he immediately goes to a bar and tries to pick up a young woman. Watching the typically wholesome Griffith slouching around and lecherously ogling women twenty years younger than him is very disorienting for a guy who grew up watching The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock. But he’s absolutely fantastic, really creepy and really off-putting. The first thirty minutes or so of this movie are kind of slow-burn character building and I actually really, really loved that section of the movie. Unfortunately, this is a “thriller,” so the plot needs to kick in and eventually Griffith’s character has to be cheesily redeemed through heroically defusing a bomb and saving everyone. Boo. But, man, I wish Griffith had gotten more chances to play morally dubious characters like this. He’s downright brilliant at it; it’s almost worth just looking this movie up and watching the first half-hour and then turning it off. 2 stars.
tl;dr – Andy Griffith, cast against type, is creepy & off-putting as a morally dubious character; unfortunately, his performance is the only good thing in this otherwise dull “thriller.” 2 stars.