***MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS**** Multi-plotted crime thriller involving L.A narcotic detective John Parker, James Slader, who ends up in far-off Vedalia on stress leave from the LAPD and gets involved in the robbery of the towns bank of over a half million dollars.
***SPOILERS FROM HERE ON END**** It takes a while to figure out what and who exactly Parker is in that the movie keeps jumping back and forth in what's going on in it. As we soon find out Parker was involved in a drug bust gone wrong back in L.A where his good friend and partner Det. Mike O'Grady, Alf Humphrerys, and four other cops and drug dealers were killed. Having a religious conversion in experiencing his friend and fellow cop O'Grady's last words before he finally passed away Parker became the target of the members of a number his fellow police on the narcotic team. Those fellow cops feel that the guilt ridden Parker is going to talk to a grand jury about their, as well as his, shaking down drug dealers for their ill gotten cash. Something they've, as well as Parker, been doing for years. With Parker now implicated in the Vedalia bank job members of the L.A narcotics division headed by Parker's boss Lt. Vince Marino, Robert Miano, come to the town's police departments aid in order to get the on the loose Parker to give himself up before he ends up dead! Which is exactly what they in fact intend to do to him!
On the run with a bullet stuck in his gut courtesy of Vedalia Deputy Sheriff Ray DeCarlo, David Keith, Parker ends up in the safety of local Veldalia hospital nurse Natalie wright, Leslie Stefanson, home sweet home outside of town. Not only had Parker met Natalie the night before at a local bar, where she bought him a drink, but as It turned out Natalie is the ex-wife of Deputy Sheriff DeCarlo the guy who just happened to have shot Parker during the bank robbery escape!
It's later with rookie FBI Agent Rick Kindall, John Livingston, checking out all the fact that it becomes clear that Parker was the right man in the wrong place at the wrong time when he bank robbery happened! The right man that is for both his fellow members of the L.A narcotic division as well as Deputy Sheriff Decarlo and his partner Tommy Meeker, Alex Zahara, in him ending up taking the rap for them!
Very well done but overly complicated film that's not really that complicated at all in how it tells its story about police corruption in a number of Rashomon-like time frames and flashbacks. We get to see John Parker a fugitive from the law perused by a number of lawmen who in fact are the one's responsible for the crimes that he's being accused of committing! Somewhat let-down of an ending but at the same time in Parker willing to put his neck on the chopping block with the threat of being murdered by the crooked cops, as well as testifying before a grand jury about them, that's the only ending you can really expect a movie like "The Stickup" to have!
***SPOILERS FROM HERE ON END**** It takes a while to figure out what and who exactly Parker is in that the movie keeps jumping back and forth in what's going on in it. As we soon find out Parker was involved in a drug bust gone wrong back in L.A where his good friend and partner Det. Mike O'Grady, Alf Humphrerys, and four other cops and drug dealers were killed. Having a religious conversion in experiencing his friend and fellow cop O'Grady's last words before he finally passed away Parker became the target of the members of a number his fellow police on the narcotic team. Those fellow cops feel that the guilt ridden Parker is going to talk to a grand jury about their, as well as his, shaking down drug dealers for their ill gotten cash. Something they've, as well as Parker, been doing for years. With Parker now implicated in the Vedalia bank job members of the L.A narcotics division headed by Parker's boss Lt. Vince Marino, Robert Miano, come to the town's police departments aid in order to get the on the loose Parker to give himself up before he ends up dead! Which is exactly what they in fact intend to do to him!
On the run with a bullet stuck in his gut courtesy of Vedalia Deputy Sheriff Ray DeCarlo, David Keith, Parker ends up in the safety of local Veldalia hospital nurse Natalie wright, Leslie Stefanson, home sweet home outside of town. Not only had Parker met Natalie the night before at a local bar, where she bought him a drink, but as It turned out Natalie is the ex-wife of Deputy Sheriff DeCarlo the guy who just happened to have shot Parker during the bank robbery escape!
It's later with rookie FBI Agent Rick Kindall, John Livingston, checking out all the fact that it becomes clear that Parker was the right man in the wrong place at the wrong time when he bank robbery happened! The right man that is for both his fellow members of the L.A narcotic division as well as Deputy Sheriff Decarlo and his partner Tommy Meeker, Alex Zahara, in him ending up taking the rap for them!
Very well done but overly complicated film that's not really that complicated at all in how it tells its story about police corruption in a number of Rashomon-like time frames and flashbacks. We get to see John Parker a fugitive from the law perused by a number of lawmen who in fact are the one's responsible for the crimes that he's being accused of committing! Somewhat let-down of an ending but at the same time in Parker willing to put his neck on the chopping block with the threat of being murdered by the crooked cops, as well as testifying before a grand jury about them, that's the only ending you can really expect a movie like "The Stickup" to have!