5 Against the House

At only 84 minutes, 5 Against the House feels incredibly rushed to a conclusion after slowly, steadily building up suspense and tension about the final crime and how it’s all going to eventually fall apart. Which is a shame, because lurking somewhere within this film may not be a classic film noir, but a much better one. To put it more succinctly, it’s good but could be better.

The five of the title refer to a group of college students, some of whom are Korean War veterans, who idly pass the time joking about a plan to steal big from a casino. As one of them begins to emotionally and mentally unravel, the plan turns from a joke into a reality. 5 takes about a third of its time setting up this premise, with a few detours to develop Brian Keith’s veteran and his eventual break from sanity and a romance between Guy Madison and Kim Novak. Novak isn’t given too much to do in the girlfriend role, but she turns in a fine performance.

But the heist is the grand center piece, and it’s pulled off very well. No pun intended by that. Yet it’s after the heist that the film devolves and decides that it needs to quickly wrap it up and rushes to an unsatisfactory conclusion only because it has been given no room to organically and logically grow. Keith’s performance is more than enough of a reason to watch this film, it truly is one hell of a performance when all is said and done, but 5 Against the House has plenty of other minor merits going for it to say that it is enjoyable, but, man, it could have turned out so much better if it had another twenty minutes or so to flesh out that conclusion.