The Trouble With Matthau's Character

I liked Mirage decades ago when I first saw it, and I like it today, but more recent viewings reveal plot holes or characterization problems.

Take Walter Matthau's private eye. Matthau is set up for comedy and for pathos as we learn that he only recently was a refrigerator repairman, that he has no partner or staff...and that Greg Peck has brought him his first case. Its too much information on a somewhat sad character -- and it makes his killing all the more painful(thankfully, we don't see him killed -- and folks still aren't sure if that is really Matthau playing the body!)

But there is also this:

Early on, Peck and Matthau go down to investigate the big basement of a skyscraper. Hired henchman George Kennedy follows them, pulls a gun...and fires exclusively at MATTHAU.

Its pretty clear: Kennedy's villainous employers (whoever they are) want Matthau dead and gone and out of the picture. But they need Peck ALIVE.

And yet, Matthau continues amiably along assisting Peck -- eventually separating off by himself back to his office -- where he IS killed.

You would think that Matthau would realize he is in mortal danger from the moment Kennedy tries to kill him. Or after Matthau learns that another "friend" of Peck's -- Joe Turtle the security guard -- has been murdered.

But Matthau doesn't care about that and neither does the script, which is, alas, too shallow and minor to write around that reality.

Also this: Peck saves Matthau's life in the skyscraper basement by knocking George Kennedy unconscious. And yet: Matthau just tosses Kennedy's gun a few feet from the unconscious man! He doesn't take it. Kennedy's gonna wake up EVENTUALLY. Now he has his gun back(and he uses it, to kill, later in the film.)

Moreover, Peck and Matthau just LEAVE KENNEDY THERE. They don't call the cops (it was the same when Peck just put unconscious bad guy Jack Weston in a broom closet and left him there.)

OF COURSE, these killers escape and kill Matthau and keep coming after Peck.

No, while I like Mirage enough, it really has a "lazy thriller script," written, I'm afraid, for an audience that was evidently assumed not to be very bright.