Synopsis
Toronto, Canada. A few days before Christmas, Miles Cullen, a bored teller working at a bank branch located in a shopping mall, accidentally learns that the place is about to be robbed when he finds a disconcerting note on one of the counters.
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Cast
- Elliott GouldMiles Cullen
- Christopher PlummerReikle
- Susannah YorkJulie
- Céline LomezElaine
- Michael KirbyCharles Packard
- Ken PogueDetective Willard
- John CandySimonsen
- Gail Dahms-BonineLouise
- Michael DonaghueBerg
- Sean SullivanBank Guard
- 88
RogerEbert.com
A small but wonderful gem of a thriller: A film in which complicated people and a very complicated plot come together in a mechanism that leaves us marveling at its ingenuity. - 80
The New York Times
A dense, quirky, uncommonly interesting movie, this time with a high quotient of suspense. - 80
Los Angeles Times
An undervalued 1978 thriller with an ingenious script by Curtis Hanson. [23 Feb 2001, p.18] - 75
TV Guide Magazine
The battle of wits is peppered with funny lines and the suspense seldom flags. - 70
Variety
The Silent Partner is one of the films that run the gamut from intrigue to violence. - 63
Washington Post
Before it takes an appalling turn for the vicious, The Silent Partner seems an uncommonly clever and gripping suspense thriller. Even after the story threatens to self-destruct, you fight the impulse to suffer a major letdown, for the sake of the swell nerve-racking time you've been having up to that point. - 63
Slant Magazine
Though Duke’s film lacks the warmth and humanism of Something Wild, it’s possessed of a similarly idiosyncratic edginess. - 50
Time Out
If it weren't for the gimmicks (and the sadism is so gratuitous it could be nothing else), then the film could easily pass for a minor caper thriller of the '60s, all convoluted plot and calculated kookiness. But cyphers (both female leads) and question-marks (who'll get the money, who'll survive - who cares?) dominate the script as every labyrinthine twist becomes more plodding.