THE STEAL 008
BLIND RAGE (1978)
The room is impregnable. Riddled with sensors. No easy access via windows or doors… but maybe from above? One man has the nerve. The skill. And in complete silence he’s lowered into the room, inch by inch, where the slightest mistake will set off alarms like judgement day.
A seemingly impossible mission.
No, not that guy.
This one.
Our hero, making his entrance from the depths, is revealed to be dressed impeccably in Black Tie. Not Bond, James Bond in GOLDFINGER (1964) - or even Harry Tasker in TRUE LIES (1994) - but the original Gentleman, Jack Hawkins, emerging from a London sewer in a spotless dinner jacket.
And Jason Bourne throwing around that little red 1989 Mini Mayfair? It may be Paris providing the backdrop, but it’s Italian Job DNA under the bonnet. Michael Caine’s crew taught that little car how to dance.
Heist movies get under your skin.
They lodge themselves in the cultural bloodstream. The ultimate inside-man.
And they influence a surprising number of movies that aren’t capers at all.
Want to shed the comic-book clown make-up of César Romero? Need to introduce a grittier Joker and shake off Jack Nicholson’s shadow? Have the new guy open the movie by planning and pulling off a precision bank robbery that cleans up after itself.
Because when you need to reset a character… or a genre… or an audience’s expectations… nothing works quite like a good caper.
How do you take the world’s most successful sci-fi franchise and make it feel new again? Have your Rebels pull off a heist (see Rogue One) and then go back and have them pull off another one (for the love of God, see Andor!)
Suddenly that galaxy far, far away feels dangerous, grounded, alive - and way fucking cooler than a weirdo in a bathrobe with a light-up stick.
As a wiser man than us once said:
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.”
Heist movies don’t just entertain us. They teach everyone else how to make an entrance. And a cool getaway. The quiet architects behind some of cinema’s loudest icons.
You see, it’s not just us who love a good heist.
Punching above its weight, emptying the vault and smoothly lifting your wristwatch on the way out. This is the little genre that could.
And once you’re in… you’re in all the way.
Welcome to The Steal.
Rob takes a wide-eyed look at something he’s calling HEISTPLOITATION in the form of 1978’s BLIND RAGE
”Let’s begin by synchronising your Braille watches.”
BLIND RAGE has quite a lot in common with THE DOBERMAN GANG (1972), but I want to start by noting the biggest difference between the two films. Because, while THE DOBERMAN GANG doesn’t have a clue what kind of movie it wants to be (family feel-good, gritty crime, goofy comedy?), BLIND RAGE knows exactly what it’s going for, and hones in on it with the unashamed bloody mindedness of a subgenre-seeking exocet missile.
That subgenre might be best described as ‘heistploitation’; which doesn’t exist according to Google, but you can comfortably assume it has elements of wonderfully low-budget Blaxploitation and amateurishly executed Kung Fu alongside the more typical heist tropes.
What this means is that the plot of BLIND RAGE is barely worth mentioning, because a) it matters so little that even the film doesn’t really pay much attention to it; and b) it pales in comparison to the central gimmick. But I’ll mention it anyway, because we can do it in a sentence or two and it only seems polite.
It’s the mid-1970s and the US government is still smarting from getting its arse handed to it in Vietnam. To make sure that nothing like that could ever happen again, they decide to create the cleverly titled ‘Project Southeast Asia’ which will provide funds to America’s allies in the area if any of the other countries start getting uppity. The first step is to transfer a $15 million slush fund to a bank in Manila, with the help of bank representative, Johnny Duran (played by Filipino actor Charlie Davao, who was fresh off the Pam Grier sexploitation classic WOMEN IN CAGES).
Johnny is the kind of bank representative who likes to tool around town in his open top sports car, wearing the kind of synthetic shirt collars that could be classified as bladed weapons. So it’s maybe no surprise that, when he’s approached by a shady character in the International House of Pancakes and offered a cut of the take if he’ll help rob his own bank, Johnny agrees before he’s finished his first cup of coffee.
P.S. This IHOP encounter provides us with the first of BLIND RAGE’s many hilariously absurd lines of dialogue: “My name is Lew Simpson... Most of my friends call me Wilbur”:
And that’s pretty much it plot-wise, apart from one small detail: The gang that’s actually going to rob the bank will be made up entirely of blind men.
Why? Well, as one of the film’s criminal masterminds helpfully explains: “No one would ever suspect five blind men of holding up a bank.”
And this is where the DOBERMAN GANG/BLIND RAGE Venn diagram begins to form. Because, just like in the canine romp from six years previously, now we must go on the hunt for a gang of unlikely bank robbers and then carefully train them over… ooh, at least three weeks... to successfully pull off a complicated caper. (Plus, in BLIND RAGE’s case they have to do it without letting on they’re blind - at least in THE DOBERMAN GANG the dogs didn’t have to pass as cats).
Luckily, Wilbur and his underworld associates have already located a handful of bad-ass blind dudes from around the world. First up is the gangster Willie Black, played by the legendary Blaxploitation director D’Urville Martin, whose CV manages to include both DOLEMITE (1975) and ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968). A few years ago Willie had a hit put out on him by the mob when he double crossed them, but thankfully the mob’s weapon of choice seems to have been Kung Fu, and so Willie survives, but not before the man from the Joy of Sex book pokes both his eyes out:
Next on the list is Lin Wang (played by BLIND RAGE co-writer, martial artist and Methodist Minister, Leo Fong), who has acid thrown into his eyes after a drug deal gone wrong. Then we’re off to Mexico City to visit Hector Lopez (Darnell Garcia), who “is known as The Blind Matador” because he’s a, erm… blind matador (his eyes were gored out by a bull). And finally, there’s the Tokyo-based American, Anderson (Dick Adair), who isn’t a criminal but is a magician (known, predictably, as The Blind Magician) and who has been blind since birth. But don’t worry, there’s no NOW YOU SEE ME nonsense here, Anderson’s magician skills are never referred to again and there seems to be no real reason for him to be there other than he can carry off mirrored aviators and an evil-looking beard.
You’d think these guys would have a few questions about the plan, which seems ambitious at best. But, you’d be wrong. Every one of them just has to be offered “a lot of money” in an envelope and they’re immediately on board. And, yes, each of them confirms that there’s a lot of money in the envelope by listening to it, because that is how all blind criminals count money in films.
In order to train this lot into a crack team of bank robbers, Duran recruits a teacher from the local blind school, called Sally (Leila Hermosa). Sally, being an upstanding member of society who has seemingly dedicated her life to helping others less fortunate than herself, immediately agrees to become part of a criminal gang as if she’s been waiting for the offer all her life, and wastes no time in training the guys so they can rob a bank without walking into furniture or accidentally shooting each other.
Cue montage!
Unlike THE DOBERMAN GANG, the training sequences here are arguably the most enjoyable part of the film. How will the gang distinguish their footsteps from the steps of the bank staff and customers? How will they know where to walk and who to talk to? How will they disable the alarms? How will a blind magician fare when you stick a loaded gun in his hand?
I’ll let you watch the film to discover those answers, but I will tell you that one more gang member is recruited to help with the alarm problem. Ben Guevera happens to be an ex-gangster, an electronics expert and someone who wants to “get even with the world for what happened to him years ago,” (that thing being ‘having his eyes power-drilled out by a gangster in a tartan suit’).
Now, technically, as Ben is going to be working behind the scenes and won’t be seen by either members of the public or the bank’s staff, he doesn’t need to be blind. But we’re way past logic by this point and Ben is played by Tony Ferrer, aka Tony Falcon, aka ‘the James Bond of the Philippines’, so there’s a lot to enjoy here.
Of course, the heist doesn’t go entirely according to plan (not least when Lin Wang starts killing innocent members of the public who dare to shift in their seats a little) and things go from bad to worse when one member of the gang leaves behind what can only be described as ‘incriminating evidence’ (this leads to another gem of a line: “Sir, we found this cane in the vicinity of the bank.”).
Even though the plot isn’t the point of watching BLIND RAGE I’m not going to spoil the ending, but I do need to talk about the last 12 minutes of the film because, just when you thought things couldn’t get any more absurd, here comes ex-NFL star and bona fide Blaxploitation megastar, Fred ‘the Hammer’ Williamson.
If you’ve watched the trailer for BLIND RAGE then you can’t have helped notice that the main draw was Williamson reprising his role as Jesse Crowder. Last seen in DEATH JOURNEY (1976) and NO WAY BACK (also 1976!), Crowder is a ‘plays by his own rules’ ex-cop/private detective/CIA agent whose “thirst for money is only matched by his thirst for women,” and who’ll stop at nothing to complete his mission.
But while he’s in 90% of the trailer, Williamson only appears in 10% of the film. The story goes that Leo Fong bumped into Williamson while they were in the middle of making the film and convinced him to appear as Crowder. But apparently Williamson only had an afternoon or so to spare and so up he pops in the last ten minutes for a fight with Duran on the roof of the House of Pancakes (making its second appearance). And it’s completely worth it for the line: “All units it’s going down right now at the International House of Pancakes!”
All of this is to say: BLIND RAGE is very very rough around the edges. As well as moments that could definitely be deemed ‘problematic’ from a 2025 perspective; there’s terrible acting, bad dubbing, absurd lines of dialogue and weird plot devices including what might be the most ill-conceived getaway vehicle in heist film history. But it’s those flaws that make this gem absolutely worth seeing (no pun intended).
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Heist News
Before we get to the obligatory HEAT 2 gossip, there’s another bit of remake news. Michael B. Jordan has been telling Variety about his upcoming remake of THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (1968 and 1999), which he’s starring in and directing. Apparently Jordan loves the 1999 Brosnan remake, and managed to get Amazon to pay for him to shoot his London-set ‘reimagining’ (so no dune buggy this time?) along with Ruth Negga, Aubrey Plaza, Kenneth Branagh and Lily Gladstone. Jordan’s version currently has a release date of March 5, 2027.
Deadline has a pretty good interview with Leo DiCaprio, which mainly focuses on ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (2025), but which also touches on HEAT 2. Leo confirms he’ll either be playing Chris Shiherlis, (Val Kilmer) or Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), but he won’t say which one yet, just that there’s a lot of “discussions” going on.
Next Issue
In two weeks Mike takes a trip up a mountain with the indomitable Humphrey Bogart in HIGH SIERRA (1941)
Thanks for reading. Thanks for subscribing. Thanks for sharing. Once the heat dies down we’ll see you at the prearranged location to split the take. What could possibly go wrong?