Comments on: Ocean’s 11, The Italian Job, David Mamet and the Great Unification of Brando, De Niro and Norton

By: Jason Ihle

Jason Ihle — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:16:01 +0000

Spike Lee’s “Inside Man” is pretty good, too.

By: Joel Friedlander

Joel Friedlander — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:53:26 +0000

The Great Train Robbery, which they call
The First Great Train Robbery,” is outstanding. It is 31 years old but it is very immediately filmed. All three of the guys in my family watched the film endlessly.

High Sierra is the film that made Humphrey Bogart a star. It is from 1941 and was filmed in the California mountains. It has the same feeling as “The Lady in the Lake,” by Raymond Chandler.

The Pink Panther, Topkapi, and The Thomas Crown Affair are all from the 1960’s, but the original “Lavender Hill Mob,” was from 1951.

You should really see The First Great Train Robbery.

By: Jason Ihle

Jason Ihle — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:05:23 +0000

It hadn’t occurred to me to consider Die Hard a heist film. I guess my preference for heist films is specifically for those in which the hero/s/protagonist/s are the thieves. So for me, Die Hard registers as an action film. I really enjoy it all the same.

A Fish Called Wanda is brilliant, but not what I had in mind.

I saw The Pink Panther a long time ago and it didn’t really connect.

I haven’t seen the others on your list.

By: Joel Friedlander

Joel Friedlander — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:37:15 +0000

May I suggest, not in chronological order, or in the order of my liking, the following heist films that I have really enjoyed:

The Great Train Robbery (Sean Connery etc)
Die Hard
A Fish Called Wanda
High Sierra
The Lavender Hill Mob (Alec Guinness etc)
The Pink Panther (Peter Sellers etc)
Topkapi
The Thomas Crown Affair (Steve McQueen)

Topkapi was the first one that I remember.

By: Jason Ihle

Jason Ihle — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:01:08 +0000

I recently watched Sneakers again. I really liked it when I was 13, but this time found it remarkably forgettable. It’s got its amusing moments, but it’s so cheap.

Look! The blind guy drives the van to save the day! Look! The lovesick kid finds a date with the CIA operative who busts them at the end. Also, it’s really dated. Released in 1992, the big prize is like a secret code that holds the key to controlling information in computers connected by dialup modems.

Also recently saw The Sting again. It’s a hell of a movie, a great con. But can you believe it won the Best Picture Oscar? Seriously, the modern equivalent would be Ocean’s 11 winning best picture. A slickly made, well written, star studded heist movie that gets all the details right.

For all the accolades bestowed on the 1970s as this golden age of American cinema, 1973 was a pretty weak year. The Sting’s toughest competition was probably American Graffiti. The Exorcist is a great example of a scare-you-shitless horror movie, but watching that again recently I can how flawed it is, although still very effective. I’ve never seen Cries and Whispers or A Touch of Class, so I can’t comment on whether they’re better than The Sting.

Other 1973 films include Serpice (recently watched again – not as good as I remembered it, great Pacino performance, well-directed and written, but not great). What else from 1973? The Way We Were? Dear lord! Last Tango in Paris – Bernardo Bertolucci’s shockfest. Groucho Marx got an Honorary Oscar that year. That was the biggest deal at that awards ceremony, I’d say.

Entrapment doesn’t make any list of mine.

I love Heat, but it just turns into a big automatic rifle shootout on the streets of LA.

I think the Soderbergh Ocean’s 11 would get my vote for best heist movie just because of its big balls. What cojones it must have taken to try to pull off a remake of a Rat Pack movie with a huge cast of stars wrapped in a convoluted con game to rob 3 Vegas casinos in one shot. And the result is a dryly comic, really well-made film. Just great pure filmmaking.

I never saw Family Business, though, so you never know.