I have a fascination for heist narratives, onscreen or on the page: the lovingly-detailed build-up, where we delve into the lives of a varied group of criminals, the casing of joints, the hatching of plans; the equally painstaking attention to the execution of the gig, with and without hitches; the last-act which can diverge, in equally-satisfying ways, toward hair-breadth escapes and the caper’s happy-ending OR toward unplanned interference, the one detail missed which blows the escape, or the eruption of submerged tensions which tears apart the gang, or….
David Denby once, in an aside, thought filmmakers loved heist films because the elaborate planning and execution echoed the intricacies of filmmaking. (Denby so rarely says anything smart that it stuck in my head. [I only say this to get into the next edition of his book on _Snark_.]) I probably get sucked in by my own meta-narrative obsessions: heist stories are about the shaping of a tightly-defined, closed plot… and the impossibility of defining and closing such plots.
But another pleasure is less analytical: I enjoy watching these films because they are about work. How often do we see characters in film working? Sure, we may see an office, or occasionally a factory; there are occasionally subplots involving a big presentation or some event. But people defining an outcome, and then carefully doing all the little shit that needs doing to make that outcome occur — heist films, or more broadly certain variants of the crime narrative, are about workers and their tasks. (We may here mark yet another point of excellence in The Wire–which was wholly concerned with the work of criminals, cops, stevedores, unions, teachers, politicians, and reporters….)
My rambling comes out of three recent viewings, a small marathon that began with an interest in catching or re-catching heist films but seemed ultimately more about the criminal at his labor.
$ is a Richard Brooks film from the late ’60s, and I’d long heard about it, but it wasn’t on video, or never where I could find it–but came out on DVD last fall. Warren Beatty stars as an American bank expert who’s plotting from within, even as he cases the joint to tighten its security, to steal certain ill-gotten gains from Gert Frobe’s bank. On the sidelines we see the ill getting those gains: a drug mule prone to violence; an American mafia bagman depositing dough; a corrupt American military officer embezzling and running blackmarket trade. All three of these bad men run into Goldie Hawn, playing (it is the ‘sixties, and it is Goldie Hawn) a ditzy escort who sleeps with them all, but is in cahoots with Beatty. It wants to be a caper film–Hawn is goofy, the heist is half-comic. It wants to be a crime film, as the criminals get a lot of screen time, watching them do their jobs. It ends with a very, very, very long chase by foot, by car, by train. It’s not terribly successful as a whole, but it’s damn interesting in parts and relatively intriguing. I ended wishing it had given Goldie away and let Beatty be a bit harder and played the whole thing dark.
The next two films did just that. I saw The Silent Partner, a Canadian film, a couple years after its initial release–early ‘eighties some time. Elliott Gould is a milquetoast bank clerk who, recognizing a potential thief (Christopher Plummer) sizing up the joint, decides to pocket a sizable chunk of change when said thief finally does pass a note and pull out a gun. Most of the film takes place after, watching Gould try to build a safe way to secrete (to later enjoy) the loot, and the very, very, very nasty Plummer finding ways to stalk and convince Gould that they’re partners, and he deserves his half. It’s gritty as hell, but also darkly funny. Gould’s great and very internal in his performance, but Plummer… man, he oozes viciousness in the most understated way.
The best film of the lot, though, is Jacque Becker’s 1954 Touchez Pas Au Grisbi–Don’t Touch the Loot. It takes place long after a heist, basically skipping ahead from the elaborate planning and execution into an extended study of how things go wrong. But the film really defines my point about labor: we watch Max (an amazing Jean Gabin), the late-in-the-game veteran thief going about his life, even spending an inordinately strange amount of time watching him brush his teeth and get into pajamas for bed — trying to just enjoy the fruits of his reputation, and then live well off the hidden loot. But his buddy–the kind of dipshit buddy who makes things go wrong, so common in crime films–lets the secret slip, and suddenly other criminals are trying to make Max part with the dough. This film has that ‘thriller’ plot, but it’s about a character, about his life and lifestyle, about his attitude and his way of being… it’s clearly a predecessor to Melville’s later existential takes on such criminals, but Becker plays it more … almost neo-realist.
I loved it.
I could go on about other great crime/heist films… but. You seen any lately?
I’m not going to give Killshot its own post, nor go on for too long. It’s nowhere near as good as its pedigree demands, nor is it as totally bland and worthless as the AV Club review asserts.
Elmore Leonard adaptation, a reasonably competent director (John Madden) and a reasonable script, Mickey Rourke, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Diane Lane, Thomas Jane… and it kind of falls flat. Rourke plays (with studied accent and mannered understatement) an aged hitman unhappy with the new bosses, nursing an old trauma; Gordon-Levitt is the hotheaded young whippersnapper who is always a scant three degrees from boiling over into either crazed aggression or aggressive crazy “charisma.” Lane and Jane are a soon-to-be-divorced couple who have seen Rourke’s face, and… yeah. Like most of Leonard’s works, there’s no big surprise in the plotting, but the purpose is to provide a clean structure for nuanced, idiosyncratic character development.
What the movie gets right: it doesn’t play large and wacky. Most of the cast seems to be on the same naturalistic page, and in particular Diane Lane is just quietly impressive.
What the movie gets wrong: Gordon-Levitt is unleashed. This doesn’t just nettle in contrast to the context; he seems to be hitting that exact note which will make dogs howl, playing “crazy” in a way that makes the guy look like a complete jackass. That’s interesting, in terms of narrative — this guy’s a prick, not a likable prick, and that runs intriguingly counter to the conventions. On the other hand, none of us in the audience want to watch a rather boring prick, and it makes no good sense how this prick gets others (like the ostensibly perfectionist and self-protective hitman Rourke) to appreciate him.
I don’t blame JGL, or the script. And I’ve read the novel–this stuff really works damn well for Leonard. You’ve got to see Madden as most culpable, doing just about every little detail ‘right’ and getting none of it to really work in tandem. Still–as a late-night cable film, it has its rewards, is worth a look.
Apparently Johnny Knoxville also played “the-character-entirely-cut-from-the-film.”
Never even heard of it . . . a straight to dvd affair? Late-night cable? You don’t have cable? Anyway, you make it sound forgettable. The idea of watching Rourke speak with an accent undermines any interest I might have in JGL (not to mention my thirty-five year crush on Diane Lane).
Perfectly in keeping with the original post is a small, apparently festival-favorite film about a small-potatoes working safecracker which is pitched as a documentary. And this Blair-Witchy poo about is-it-real-or-is-it-fiction ends up in most conversations about Street Thief online, which unfairly undercuts what is a smart, understated study of an arrogant yet competent fulltime criminal (played, I’ve found out, by one of the film’s creators). It’s filmed well enough–shoestring budget, handheld camera–but even better there’s a real tension that emerges through skillful editing. The film is tight. And I enjoyed it–in keeping with the pleasures of a job done right (and then gone wrong) so typical to the heist flick.
Killshot is better than its reputation. I think it suffers from being known as an Elmore Leonard adaptation, because the movie is almost totally humorless, lacking in the wordplay that we associate with movies adapted from his work. But it does effectively build a mood, and Rourke (accent or no accent) mostly keeps his acting low key, relying more on his facial muscles than the more familiar bursts of fury. The movie builds a mood and then sustains it for 90 minutes. Better than expected.