It took quite a while before I could figure out all of the pieces of this scheme and the people involved which I enjoy. I don't like to know everything within the first ten minutes. Caine plays a crook and somehow manages to get a local schoolboy involved in his scheme. Or the schoolboy decides to help Caine with his crime. Caine is a great actor. He is very believable as always. Good dialogue and other actors were very good (Caine's callgirl, School Headmaster and Professor). There aren't any hum-drum moments in this film. The excitement/suspense slowly keeps building up scene after scene. The gigantic church on the outskirts of town becomes the focal point of the heist becoming a success and at the last minute they have to shake it down so their plan won't fail. There's a lot of suspense and tense moments. Caine winds up being too ruthless for my tastes and the ending kind of fell short for me. But it's worth a look.

Like a previous poster, I availed of this film in Woolworths in Blackpool while on a trip and pretty flush for cash. I still feel aggrieved. Truly, the worst film I have ever witnessed. The plot is ridiculous, in particular the killing of the prostitute. Why? It really is an embarrassment to film making. Unbelievably dire. What was Caine thinking? Indeed what was Leslie Grantham thinking. This was his worst decision prior to the web cam episode. The kid is only likable because he is fat and ugly, and you cant help but feel that he's the type to be bullied. The choir aspect is pointless, and I struggle to recall a worse film ever! Well maybe American Dreamz.

This really wouldn't look out of place as a student film. Leaden script, poor acting and a plot that never really gets going are just a few of the things that can be said. Caine is OK, but you get the feeling that the rest of the cast just don't care. In fact with better production values and a little more believable action this film could have been at least half-way decent. In the mid- to late-sixties there may have been a call for this type of film but not now. Then, it would have been slightly dangerous and risque, perhaps even exciting (then again perhaps not). Now it collects dust as it sits on the shelves of the local video outlet (really - it does!). The film is just a shadow of what could have been.

Dull and frequently inept caper film is never suspenseful and often seems to make little sense. Caine is a veteran criminal who kills numerous people, seemingly for no other reason than to show what a dangerous bastard he is and to make the audience fear for the life of a chubby kid that the movie keeps cutting to. Film stars out with said chubby little boy stumbling across a van with blood dripping out of the back. Caine pops up. warns the boy menacingly that he didn't see a thing, gives him a twenty pound note and sends him on his way. The boy promptly goes to school and tells everyone he comes into contact with what he saw, but since he's prone to exaggeration and tall tales nobody believes him. Of course, since there's no indication that Caine cleaned up the crime scene and since the film takes place not in a big city but in a more remote part of England, you would think something would turn up to corroborate the boy's story. Things just get worse from there. Initially the scenes in Shadow Run seem so disconnected I thought the director was filming out of order ala Pulp Fiction. Nope. Michael Caine's character is at the heart of what's wrong with the movie: he's a vet thief that who seems to kill someone in cold blood every twenty minutes or so. At one point he admonishes a confederate in the next job for trying to figure out a way to pull off the robbery without killing any innocent people. What kind of thief wants to kill if it isn't necessary? If Caine were some twenty year old hothead you might be able to buy it, but a man in his late sixties? It hardly seems likely that Caine's character would live as long as he has or that anyone would want to work with or hire such a psycho. His character isn't believable and neither is this boring and dreadful film.