Heist

December 10, 2004

Rated: R Runtime: 107 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Heist is the latest offering from writer/director David Mamet whose previous credits include State and Main, Wag the Dog and most recently Hannibal. With a pedigree like that and a cast that includes Gene Hackman, Danny Devito and Delroy Lindo, we went into this movie with high expectations.

Heist

The story here revolves around an aging thief, played by Hackman, and his crew who are looking for that last big heist. Hackman’s character, Joe Moore gets caught on camera while the crew is hitting a jewelry store and decides it’s time to hang it up. But he finds himself being blackmailed into one last huge caper by Bergman played by Danny Devito.

There are no huge stunts, multimillion dollar special effects or people jumping around on wires to make their martial arts moves defy gravity in this movie. Instead what we have here is a group of really great actors developing characters and telling a compelling story. We’ve been so blitzed with high tech and non-stop action lately, that it is refreshing to see an old pro like Gene Hackman demonstrate that it’s possible to be quite entertaining without it. The entire cast here is excellent but the performances by Delroy Lindo as a member of Hackman’s crew and Devito as their nemesis are particularly good. There are some really great lines interlaced in the dialogue.

Although the story is indeed very good and compelling, it’s not without problems. First and foremost the number of turns, revelations and surprises they throw at us is almost dizzying. By the end of the movie, I caught myself being distracted looking for the next one before it happened. And in essence the movie became very predictable by trying to be overly unpredictable. Mamet would be well served to go take a look at The Sting to see how a con/caper movie really should be done.

The film gets a very solid 3 stars from us. It flirted with that fourth star on the strength of the performances. However, when we ask ourselves is this movie truly a must-see on the big screen and how anxious we are to see it again, we realize this one doesn’t quite get that fourth star. But if you’re looking for a movie that isn’t going to be packed with noisy teenagers with short attention spans, you could do much worse than this movie.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 3 Stars, Danny Devito, Delroy Lindo, Drama, Gene Hackman, R, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay, Theatrical