In a May 9th review of the Sorcerer Bluray, N.Y. Times video columnist Jim Hoberman notes the up-and-down trajectory of director William Friedkin‘s career in the ’70s. “The one-two punch of The French Connection (’71) and The Exorcist (’73) made the man nicknamed Hurricane Billy a gale-force talent,” he writes, “[but] the successive failures of Sorcerer (’77), The Brink’s Job (’78) and Cruising (’80) sent Hurricane Billy out to sea.” Favorable re-assessments of Sorcerer and Cruising have, of course, been key factors in the restoration of Friedkin’s fortunes, but nobody ever mentions The Brinks Job. There are reasons for that. I never thought it worked (too broad, too lighthearted, too Damon Runyon-esque) and neither did Friedkin. In his recently published book “The Friedkin Connection,” he wrote that Brinks “has some nice moments despite thinly drawn characters, but it left no footprint. There’s little intensity or suspense and the humor is an acquired taste. The film doesn’t shout, it doesn’t sing — it barely whispers.” But I love this scene in which Alan Garfield, playing Peter Falk‘s dimwitted brother, is unable to resist an impulse.