Last updated on July 20, 2014
I’ve always had a penchant for heist movies for whatever reason. Why do they tend to contain likeable characters with witty dialogue who break the law? I’m not sure, quite honestly, but I still find them quite entertaining nonetheless. Are either of them as good as The Sting or The Thomas Crown Affair (which one? Guess.)? I’m not sure, but they entertained me either way.
Gambit – This “art heist” turns out to become a mostly strange British/American hybrid comedy right from the start. Colin Firth plays an art appraiser who works for a mega publishing tycoon (played by Alan Rickman, who I must inevitably love in just about every film in which he appears) who also wants revenge for…something.
Honestly, the motivation for Harry Deane to steal Monet paintings or money besides “Shabandar is a bad person I don’t like” never quite comes through. Harry Dean seems like a small, petty man who just doesn’t like his boss all that much, and exaggerates his claims to recruit a “team” of sorts. All of this comes through for both perceptual gags and bizarre differences between appearance and reality – in other words, extremely dry humor.
Regardless of the strange mixed information, this comedy plays to its advantage of mixing strange, surreal humor (such as an incredibly great dream sequence that only hits you as humorous after about five minutes) and dumb slapstick. The “heist” itself amounts to little more than the setup presented at the beginning of the film, while the rest indulges in things like old ladies farting and a billion innuendos involving a nickname. And yet, given all that, I can’t help but like the film regardless. It entertained, relayed all the details through a combination of visuals and light exposition, while also making me laugh far more than it should.
From one perspective, this movie contains just about zero originality. We go through the motions, so to speak, in its ninety minute span, and we already know how the narrative will end before it starts. None of this means Gambit does not employ its tropes well, or that any of this comes across poorly – well, that depends on your opinion on Cameron Diaz’ acting chops. Rather, it will depend on your tolerance for familiarity and stupid laughs.
If anything surprises me at all, it’s the nature of this film’s languishing in development hell AND the lack of a proper theater release in the United States. Apparently a remake of a 1966 film starring Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine, it received a completely rewrite and rescripting by Joel and Ethan Coen – yet, THOSE Coen brothers. Just about a billion different actors, directors, and production companies came and went trying to bring this thing to life, and I would guess the end result failed to hold up to the standards of the original script.
So, I give it a tepid recommendation for anyone who doesn’t like Monty Python-esque humor, but if you enjoy seeing such things it will not waste your time for very long, all said.
The Art of the Steal – Yet another pleasant Netflix surprise arrived in the form of a (?!) Kurt Russell vehicle in the year 2014 – not exactly something you see in this day and age. Thankfully, I found myself in just the right mood (after watching Tombstone, duh), and The Art of the Steal turned out to be a perfectly hilarious heist movie. A heist movie about a completely fake Gospel of James that supposedly is worth a whole lot of money. So yes, that part is quite dumb, but the rest of the film plays it quite smart.
The details remain exactly as you’d expect from such a film (again, art heist movie, what else?), and this one sidles toward the Ocean’s Eleven side of the coin with an R-Rated tinge. In fact, The Art of the Steal often hit the “incredibly witty” side of the coin so much, with some incredibly creative lines that didn’t go for a cheap curse word laugh (still, we’re venturing into R-rated territory, so obviously the subject matter may turn out less than savory for any potential viewers). I appreciate the effort to create exciting and interesting banter among a group of old thief hands, and at least you get that. Crunch Calhoun and his very eccentric team eke out many laughs over the course of the film, so much so that I care not to spoil any of them.
Since I know this always comes up when discussing such films, what about Kurt Russell? As far as Kurt Russell goes, he always plays Kurt Russell and always does exactly the same acting job of playing Kurt Russell; that’s just a love/hate approach, and you’ll know right away whether this works for you. It does help that they turn him into an Evel Kenevil character for no reason other than laughs, and R-rated comedy stand-by Jay Baruchel just as the innocent bystander.
Of course, we’re still talking about creative thievery, and this one mostly involves getting across the American border from Quebec City, an unusual setting for sure. Matt Dillon plays the shifty half-brother (man, does that guy always look shifty in a film or what), and both brothers of the Calhoun family have their own agenda in the steal. This makes for an exciting film that, like Gambit, also tends to succeed in spite of the overuse of “heist movie” tropes. Just about every one you could imagine turns up, and I am not too bitter about it. If they work, they work, and it just comes down to a great script.
So, do I recommend this? Yeah, sure, why not? Again, somehow this fits into the ninety minute territory, and I am glad these film don’t overstay their welcome, unlike big budget blockbusters of recent memory. I am not hard to please; just give me some laughs and a semi-intriguing plot, and you win with me. The Art of the Steal does just that, and nothing more.
