Cast: Elliot Gould, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York, Celine Lomez, Michael Kirby, Sean Sullivan, Ken Pogue, John Candy, Gail Dahms, Michael Donaghue, Jack Duffy, Nancy Simmonds, Nuala Fitzgerald, Guy Sanvido, Charlotte Blunt, Aino Pirskanen, Michele Rosen, Candace O’Connor
Miles Cullen (Gould) is the head teller in a bank at a mall in Toronto. Miles is interested in pretty Julie Carver (York), one of the bank employees, but she ignores him. One day, at Christmastime, he notices a left over note, worded in a way someone would use to announce their purpose to rob the bank. Bank manager Charles Packard (Kirby) is having an affair with Julie, and he asks Miles to escort her to a company party at his house. Miles’s clumsy attempts to charm Julie only add to her opinion that he is a fool. Miles figures out that the holdup note was written by the mall’s Santa Claus and he formulates a daring plan. When the Santa actually holds up the bank, Miles hands him only a small portion of the bank’s cash and hides the rest in his lunchbox. The bank robber, Harry Reikle (Plummer), escapes only to discover that his robbery’s proceeds are much less than the amount reported stolen. Harry takes out his frustration on a girl at a sauna (Simmonds), brutally beating her. Miles secretly puts away the cash at a safety deposit box, and begins to fantasize about what he’ll do in a few months, when things quiet down and he leaves the bank for a new and better life. Miles’s encounter with the bank robber makes him a hero at the bank, and gains him Julie’s admiration. But Harry works out that Miles somehow managed to take his money. Furious at being duped, he tracks down Miles and demands his money back. In a chilling encounter Harry tells Miles that they are partners now, and Miles must find a way for them to share the money, or “one night when you come home you’ll find me inside waiting.” Unable to seek help from the authorities, Miles must use his intellect and his newly-gained self-confidence to devise a way to prevail over a cunning and menacing adversary. The tenseness of the cat-and-mouse contest between Harry and Miles escalates to a spectacular ending. Based on Anders Bodelsen’s novel Think of a Number.
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