What happens when the rich dude thinks you’ve done him a favour by kidnapping his wife and refuses to pay a ransom?
Ordell Robbie and his friend Louis Gara, who has just come out of prison, need to make money. Being of a criminal mindset, the answer seems obvious; kidnap some woman from the tennis club and wait for her rich dude husband to hand over a million dollars.
Their plans run into a problem when he makes it clear they’ve done him a favour and they can keep her for as long as they like. He has no intention of handing any cash over.
So now the hapless pair have a problem. And BTW, why are we interested in them, as film editors? Close your eyes and recall Samuel L. Jackson and Robert De Niro in Quentin Tarrantino’s ‘Jackie Brown‘. That’s them, although the film is based on the later book ‘Rum Punch’ which picks up on ‘The Switch’ but thirteen years later.
What both books teach us is economy with words, economy with detail, economy with plot. Just get on with it. Pace it right. Character follows plot, or something.
Back to the story. Elmore Leonard has a direct, vivid and colourful writing style. Economic. To the point. He once said “Never use an adverb to modify the word “said”. And he doesn’t. The result is a taut, tense thriller, but not a great deal of romance or any of those soft and mushy emotion thingys. No. At points it’s brutal. But a great read.
CONCLUSION: Recommended.