O Neal, Ned Beatty, Gregory Sierra
The story is a simple comic caper - O'Neal plays a bright computer programmer in the Houston area who chucks his humdrum life to become a jewel thief. He gives himself the moniker of The Chess Burgler as he leaves a chess piece and his next move at each place he robs. Warren Oates is on point and downright hysterical as an insurance investigator on his tail.
The scenes with Oates and O'Neal are the stuff of movie magic and the whole cast rocks especially Austin Pendleton as a local newspaper chess editor. He's playing against O'Neal but becomes completely unglued as he's unaware O'Neal is using a computer to make his moves. His last scene where he destroys his office is funny as s*it. Also featured in a couple scenes is Jill Clayburgh on one of her first outings.
Only available on VHS. If you're not lucky enough to already own it then good luck as of this writing I can't find a single listing including Ebay and Amazon. I paid $20 for mine in 2010 and three years ago when I did a post on this they were going for 150. One of those strange titles that might show up in a thrift store without anyone realizing what its value is. Hopefully someday it will be released in a modern format, it absolutely deserves it. 3.25 stars/5
