The caper film is a classic genre and there are some wonderful examples of these movies such as RAFIFI, GRAND SLAM, OCEANS 11 and many, many more. With "The Alpha Caper", however, it's a made for television version of these films and, like most films like it, it's worth seeing...though it's far from being a classic.
Mark Forbes (Henry Fonda) is a parole officer and he's being forced to retire. However, instead of spending his time playing shuffleboard or sitting in a rocking chair, he's planning on doing a huge gold heist. After all, he knows lots of ex-cons and is able to assemble a team of guys with considerable skills. Can they pull it off? Perhaps. Will they get away with it? Rarely does this ever happen in a caper film!
The biggest weakness of this movie is that like most made for TV films, it was rushed and done on the cheap. Sure, they must have spent a lot of money for Fonda...as well as Leonard Nimoy and Larry Hagman...but was a lot of money left for rewrites or better direction? Probably not. This is probably why there are a few mistakes or sloppy scenes. Take the one where Hagman is shooting some sort of dart-like objects onto the undersides of the armored trucks. When he does this to the last one and says "This is the last one"...you can CLEARLY see another armored truck coming up behind. They simply kept reusing the same footage. Or, when the attack began, why did EVERY cop on a motorcycle suddenly come sliding off their motorcycle?! And then there was that preacher....well you kind of get the idea. An interesting film with good acting and only okay attention to details and the script. Still, overall it's still worth seeing.
