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They say that love makes the world go round and the thieves in Heist agree, but that love is the love of money. Gene Hackman stars as aging jewel thief Joe Moore. The entire film Heist is about two big jobs and all the things that can go wrong when knocking off a jewelry store or going for gold. Hollywood has drilled in our heads there is honor among thieves. It shows the audience that there is a code that thieves live by among other thieves. Well this film shows us that thieves screw other thieves over and over again. In fact they screw with each other just to make sure they will do another job for them. The biggest scammer was the boss man Bergman (Danny DeVito also in What’s the Worse That Can Happen). Yeah sounds like a great profession. After putting yourself on the line you might not even get the payoff. We see this theme in many movies, only they play it off as if it wasn’t intentional to scam the other guy and the last person standing is not necessarily the winner blah blah blah. This film was interesting because Hackman was good at his job and violence was a last resort. He had a backup plan to the backup plan. Hackman (Enemy of the State) kept us on our toes. There were a few shoot-out scenes, a nifty explosion and a lot of ingenious planning. So if you are looking for tons of action, this is not your flick, but if you are after some strategy and craftiness then Heist is a winner. You
know a lot of planning went into the first heist. Hackman’s wife Fran Moore
(Rebecca Pidgeon of State and
Main) is working in a coffee shop so she can drug the drinks of the people
that work in the jewelry store. She leaves and follows them to make sure they
take the drinks. She passes her partners in crime Hackman and Bobby Blane (Delroy
Lindo of The Last Castle and Cider
House Rules) and signals them. The other co-conspirator Pinky (Ricky Jay)
leaves a building carrying what looks like a stack of books. Hackman and Lindo
signal and he drops a bomb in a trashcan as he walks past. Not only was this a
brilliant plan of diversion, but then there is the fact that a whole jewelry
store of workers is sound asleep. While emergency workers are handling the
explosion Hackman’s gang knocks off the jewels. Only problem is this was to be
their last job. Lindo and Jay were going legit and Hackman and Pidgeon were
leaving in his boat to spend the rest of their lives on an island. Oh yeah
Hackman has a legitimate boat shop as a cover. Well DeVito took all the jewels
and screwed them so they would have to do the gold job. Now he can’t trust
them because he fucked them over so he sends his nephew Jimmy Silk (Sam
Rockwell) to keep an eye on them. Now it is our job to watch who screws whom. The
action is slow but interesting. We are kept on our toes by all the double
dealing and backstabbing. Just when you think you know who is on what side they
throw a curve and things heat up again. Remember it is all for love, love of
gold. All performances were well done and believable so I gave Heist that was
written and directed by David Mamet a seven on the About-Movies.com scale. I
would have scored it higher had there been more explosions (only two) and more
violence.
Last updated: Saturday, October 28, 2006 05:37:37 PM Click Here to get back into frames.
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