Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966)

☆ ☆ ½

Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966) – B. Girard

James Coburn is suave, yes, but can his personality carry an entire movie when the plot takes a leisurely meandering course to get to where it’s going?  Methinks not.  If this were a character study rather than a heist film, then we should learn a bit more about Coburn’s raisons d’etre.  Instead, this is all just a slow build to the ironic but otherwise underwhelming conclusion.  Coburn is a master manipulator who gets himself paroled from prison and then embarks on a mission to secure enough cash to buy the blueprints for a bank that he plans to hold up.  The timing will be just right, as the Soviet premier is landing in Los Angeles and causing a big commotion.  Watch as the plot slowly slowly slowly unspools. Not bad, not good.