Hitchcock Review: Family Plot

From 1976 comes Hitch's last film. Apparently, he did not go out with a bang.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a good little diversion. It's another one of his normal-guy-gets-in-over-his-head type of movies. It just pales in comparison to most of his other work.

Dialogue is terrible and some of the car scene effects are down right bad. There is a hope that comes out of this movie though. Hitch still led me down a trail of suspense that I had to find out what happened next.

This is the story of a broke couple, a cabbie and a fake psychic, that winds up uncovering jewel thieves. The fake psychic, a bit that was nowhere near taken as far as it should have been, almost like it was glossed over, is hired by a believer to find a long-lost heir. The problem that we discover is that the long-lost heir is a very bad jewel thief and kidnapper that does not want to be found.

Hitch does some neat tricks here. I loved the camera/story change where our couple in the car stop for a pedestrian and then we leave the couple and follow the pedestrian into the kidnapping plot. This is reminiscent of Psycho in that the movie opens with Janet Leigh but we change protagonists half way through to Norman Bates.

Not one of Hitch's best, but it was good.