The Anderson Tapes is a 1971 American neo-noir crime film directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Sean Connery.
Duke Anderson (Connery) decides to plan a hit on a luxurious Manhattan building soon after leaving prison, but unwittingly ends up entering a world of pervasive surveillance, from security cameras in public places to hidden recording devices. Complicating matters is that Duke has to cash in a debt of honor he contracted with the mob while in prison during the course of his robbery.
The movie also stars Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam, Ralph Meeker, Garrett Morris, and Christopher Walken.
It was released on June 17, 1971.
Tropes for the film:
- Big Brother Is Watching: Virtually every single second of Anderson's heist, from conception to everything going to hell and the caper crew either being killed or arrested, was captured by surveillance from a number of different sources (police stakeouts, private detectives, the FBI, etc.) However, none of them interacted with each other, none of them did anything to try to stop the heist, and after everything is done they all decide to erase all information they recorded making mention of the heist to cover their own rear ends of the previous two points.
- Bolivian Army Ending: Duke Anderson ends the film in critical condition after being shot. It is unknown what happens to him afterwards.
- The Caper: The title refers to the fact the story is told through surveillance tapes.
- Caper Rationalization: Anderson invokes this over the theft he's planning. It's actually a favor to the victims, who over-insure property. The cops have somebody to chase, the newspapers have something to write about, the list goes on. Then he subverts it by saying he's just in it for the money.
- Composite Character: Ingrid Everleigh is a combination of Ingrid Macht and Agnes Everleigh from the novel.
- Right Hand Versus Left Hand: There were at least a dozen agencies (private investigators, the police, political spies, corporate saboteurs, the FBI) keeping an eye on every single moment of Anderson's planning of the caper, and not a single one of them did anything to prevent it because that would mean exposing to the world that they were performing surveillance - the very last scene of the film is even the superiors of every single one of these factions independently ordering the erasure of all of the tapes in order to cover their own rear ends.
- Malevolent Masked Men: All of the members of Anderson's thieving crew wear leather face masks during the heist.
- Uriah Gambit: The mob's price for its help is that Duke take Socks along on the job... and make sure he doesn't survive it.
