Bill Murray is a uniquely chaotic Hollywood legend. The notoriously private comedian-turned-actor is infamous for waiting until the very last minute to commit to a project, leaving entire productions hanging until literally the moment he walks on set. At the same time, he has a well-documented habit of wandering into random people’s lives - “Bill Murray crashed my wedding” or “Bill Murray appeared at my birthday party and sang karaoke” stories are an entire genre of the internet. He’s almost a mythical creature, an unpredictably mischievous spirit drifting through the world, beholden only to his own amusement.

That’s what makes Quick Change so interesting. A 1990 crime comedy about three catastrophically unlucky bank robbers struggling to get across New York City and reach the airport for their escape flight to Fiji, Quick Change was the first time Murray actually stayed in place long enough to direct a film, sharing a co-director credit with Howard Franklin. It was part of a burst of films Murray made back-to-back at the end of a brief career hiatus, and while it didn’t enjoy the same commercial or critical success as Scrooged or Ghostbusters II, it might secretly be one of the most significant movies he’s ever done because of how personal it feels. You see, in addition to being a movie about a bank robber, it’s also about a middle-aged guy looking for a way out of a life that he no longer finds fulfilling, and questioning whether he ever really did in the first place.

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Image via Warner Bros.

Murray plays Grimm, an everyman working in the city planner’s office who decides to plan the perfect heist so he, his girlfriend Phyllis (Geena Davis), and his childlike best friend Loomis (Randy Quaid) can ditch the drudgery of working-class New York forever. He robs a bank dressed like a clown, with Phyllis and Loomis already inside and disguised as customers. Grimm begins sarcastically negotiating with Police Chief Rotzinger (Jason Robards), an aging lawman on the verge of retirement. Grimm agrees to release some hostages, and then removes his clown costume so he, Phyllis, and Loomis can simply walk out the front door masquerading as hapless captives. It’s basically the same heist as the one Clive Owen pulls in Spike Lee’s Inside Man, only with clowns instead of Nazi gold.

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However, the robbers encounter an escalating series of improbable obstacles as they try to accomplish what should have been the simplest phase of the plan – getting to the airport on time. Quick Change is almost vaudevillian in that every conceivable thing that could go wrong, does go wrong, including everything from a chance encounter with violent gangsters to making exact change out of a million dollars in stolen money for an absurdly by-the-book bus driver. They make their flight in the nick of time (this was 1990, so you could essentially sprint out onto the tarmac 30 seconds before departure without getting tackled by Homeland Security agents), but not before accidentally helping Rotzinger capture a notorious mobster (Kurtwood Smith). Rotzinger doesn’t realize who Grimm and his travel partners are until it’s too late, and the credits roll as the plane takes off to carry our heroes to the non-extradition country of their choice.

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Image via Warner Bros.

Quick Change is based on the novel of the same name by Jay Cronley, and while the bones of the story are essentially the same, Murray’s fingerprints are all over the movie to the degree that it feels like an allegory for his own life and his career as a comedic actor. Like I mentioned earlier, Murray famously has a contentious relationship with the idea of fame and celebrity, and it’s difficult not to interpret Grimm’s listlessness as a reflection of Murray’s dissatisfaction with life in the spotlight. He’s literally dressed like a clown, a jaded comedian offering ironic quips to anyone who will listen. As he walks across town to the bank during the opening credits, people barely react to him, if they even notice him at all. (Two guys pushing a shopping cart through an intersection run over his feet without so much as acknowledging his existence.) When Grimm reaches the bank and pulls out his gun to announce the robbery, nobody takes him seriously until he finally shoots a few bullets into the ceiling.

In the story, Grimm is a disillusioned blue-collar guy who wants to get out of his thankless dead-end career and start doing things that make him happy. In the robbery sequence, however, he’s literally a sad clown looking for a way out. It’s extremely hard not to interpret that as Murray commenting on his own career, especially considering Quick Change was his first (and only) directing credit, taken on at the end of a hiatus that lasted nearly half a decade. After experiencing a critical and commercial failure with his dramatic project The Razor’s Edge, Murray only appeared in brief cameos from 1985 until the end of 1988, a period of just over four years. Furthermore, The Razor’s Edge was released in 1984, the same year as Ghostbusters, meaning he experienced both the biggest success and arguably the greatest failure of his career up to that point within a period of about four months. I’d probably need to take a moment after riding that particular roller coaster, too.

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Image via Warner Bros.

There’s more symbolism to be found in the fact that Grimm is a bank robber dressed as a clown. He’s putting on a funny costume to take people’s money – in other words, an extremely cynical view of the relationship between a comedian and their audience. He doesn’t seem to be enjoying himself, but nonetheless uses the hostage situation to make demands for a bunch of luxury items he doesn’t want or need simply because he can, and because he thinks it’s kind of funny to watch people scurry around to please him. Whether or not it was intentional, this can certainly be interpreted as a performer unhappy with fame but still using his status to try and find joy in material things. This is also Grimm’s first and only bank robbery, much like Quick Change is the first and only film Murray has directed.

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There’s a subplot in the film about Phyllis’ relationship with Grimm; specifically, she’s just learned she’s pregnant and isn’t sure how to break the news to him (or if she even wants to tell him at all). Her hesitation about going through with the plan and starting a family with Grimm reaches a boiling point after she watches him hustle and bluff his way through each obstacle they face. She’s worried that Grimm is losing himself to the plan and sinking further into criminality, even saying to him at one point, “You turned into Jimmy Cagney.” In Grimm’s eyes, he’s only doing what he has to do with the talent he has in order to secure their future together. It sure sounds like Murray commenting on the feeling of losing his identity in the pursuit of success as an actor and comedian. Indeed, he’s probably heard a version of Phyllis’ argument before, as have many other performers. It’s the idea of “this business changes you,” and it’s right there in the film’s title – it might be a quick change to switch from your performing persona to the “real you,” but sometimes your friends and loved ones can’t tell the difference.

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Image via Warner Bros.

There’s a connection between Grimm and Rotzinger, and consequently to Murray himself, in that both men are at the end of their ropes in careers they no longer find fulfilling. Rotzinger even holds the hand of his subordinate to lead him out of the room in one scene, something Grimm does earlier to the bank manager when leading him out of the vault. It’s both a fun callback gag and a direct visual link between the two characters. Rotzinger makes several references to the fact that he is retiring soon, and that he’s worried no one will remember all of the good things he did because he let a man dressed as a clown get away with a million dollars. It’s a comment on the fickle nature of public opinion, and the double-edged sword of pursuing a career that depends on it. At one point in the film, Rotzinger exasperatedly says, “Why do I still want this fucking job? Can’t I imagine a more inspired destiny for myself?” It’s hard not to picture that line coming directly from Murray’s mouth.

In a 2010 interview with EW, Murray’s Quick Change co-director Howard Franklin briefly commented on whether the film was intended to be autobiographical. Surprisingly, Franklin insists it wasn’t a conscious decision on anyone’s part, but acknowledges how easily the connection can be made:

EW: I was tempted to see parallels to see how Grimm viewed New York and how Bill views Hollywood. Did anyone see it that way at the time?

FRANKLIN: No. But I can see what you’re saying: He’s sort of the outsider-insider.

And he’s kind of fed up with the day-to-day and he’d rather just get away and do it his own way.

FRANKLIN: Right, and I think in many ways, that’s the essence of Bill’s appeal — he’s doing and saying things which we all would like to do, but don’t quite have the courage or intelligence to pull off.

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Image via Warner Bros.

In a way, the fact that we don’t definitively know whether Quick Change was intended to be a movie about Bill Murray makes it the perfect movie about Bill Murray. He is surrounded by more mystique than almost any other actor of his generation – nebulous half-truths and tall tales blend so seamlessly with the genuine events of his life and career that, like Phyllis, it’s hard for us to tell where the performer ends and the real person begins. “It’s obvious, but compare where he is with anybody else who was on Saturday Night Live,” Franklin said. “There’s an impossible gulf, and he’s still at the center of things — as much as he chooses to be. And he turns down so much stuff. I’m still getting calls, like, ‘Can you help me get this to Bill Murray?’ I honestly don’t know if there’s method to his madness. It’s just him. But it seems to work.”

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