10 Underappreciated 80s Thrillers You Must Watch
4. 52 Pick-Up
52 Pick-Up is a great little thriller by John Frankenheimer, a director not unfamiliar with the genre. It is essentially a film about desperate characters out of their depth and being pushed to doing even more desperate things.
Roy Scheider plays Harry Mitchell, a businessman with a comfortable life and a wife running for city council. He is also having an affair with a young stripper who is part of a set up to blackmail Harry. When Harry decides not to pay up and confess the affair to his wife, things turn chaotic.
The action develops quickly and Scheider portrays Harry as a smart everyman, but not a superhero – a key character trait that helps the film immeasurably. He quickly learns how he might play off his blackmailers against one another and create tensions that quickly turn to violence and murder between them.
The main antagonist, Alan Raimy - a seedy character played by John Glover - is great value as the bad guy. He is unbelievably slimy and self-serving but again is a believable character. He is prone to violence if pushed, but not the criminal mastermind he believes himself.
Frankenheimer didn’t equal this great movie again for another 12 years with Ronin.