Did you notice how Matthau contradicts himself in this one? First he says that they have to wait four or five years before they can spend any of that stolen mafia money then he says the mafia never stops looking for you unless they think you're dead. Well if they never stop looking for you unless they think you're dead, what makes him think it will be any safer to spend that money after five years, or for that matter, as long as they're living? It's paradoxical!
shareI'm thinking they will now suspect boyle because Honest John said that to Molly and Honest John is still alive at the end of the film to talk to his superiors in the mob.
So that when they find Boyle dead and the money bags burned and partially burned money around they will think it burned up in the car. Varrick switched the dental records with Sullivan didn't he? So sullivan's body in the trunk is going to make Varrick dead to the mafia.
The money is burned up, Boyle provides the inside man, Varrick who the secretary saw is "dead".
The mafia now thinks everybody is dead and the money is destroyed. So they will stop looking.
What you say makes sense except for one problem: if Varrick destroyed ALL the money, he'd be defeating his own purpose and from what I was able to observe in the movie, it looked as though he destroyed only part of it.
shareI'd like to add this to my earlier reply to you: Varrick only did what he did because Harman refused to go along with the program and therefore, Varrick had to protect himself. If Harman had agreed to lay low and not rock the boat as Varrick was trying to persuade him to do, none of that ever would have happened.
sharethat's why you gotta pick some really nice golf courses to spend it on.
We have a pool and a pond...pond be good for you.
This is one of the conceits of per-1990s Hollywood: That Mafia will spend years hunting you down.
It's a fiction that was disrupted when in real life people Sammy "The Bull" testified in open court against Mafia bosses and nothing happened to them. The Mafia lost its veneer of omnipotence.
If Varrick left the area and lived a low-key lifestyle he could have spent th money as soon as he stole it. There are too many people out there doing too much for attention to be drawn to him.
Bad films are a crime against humanity.
Very interesting--thanks for enlightening me!
shareAfter five years they can start to spend it, but only slowly and so as not to draw any attention. That's what he meant.
share