Director: David
Mamet | Starring:
Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo,
Sam Rockwell, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay
Released: 2001
| Runtime: 111m
| Rating (out of 5):
*½ |
|
David Mamet is one of
those guys you either love or hate. His movies seldom outpace your
average Animal Planet documentary. Characters talk a lot, and sound
rather thespianish doing it. In typical (and seriously ridiculous)
Mamet fashion, a fat, nebbishy Ricky Jay delivers the line, "My
motherfucker is so cool, when he goes to sleep, sheep count him."
Would a bearded, middle-aged man ever utter anything remotely similar
to this? No. And so goes Mamet. And, alas, so goes Heist.
Every director/writer must feel that at some point they need to attempt
the caper picture. You know the plot. A group of sympathetic thieves
are in for one last caper. The lead thief (in this case Hackman) had
wanted to retire, but something like blackmail, pride, etc. brings
him back to lead his gang in one more robbery. There are lots of twists
and turns. People stab each other in the back, and our hero retires
to a desert island after he comes out on top. Blah. Of course, Mamet's
ego leads him to believe that he can build a better mousetrap. Not
only doesn't he build upon an already tired genre, he fails to even
make a remotely interesting movie. He has this misconception that
if he just keeps adding double-crosses and twists, he'll confuse the
audience to the point that they won't see exactly what's coming. Unfortunately,
these twists do nothing but tack a few more minutes on an already
tired movie. The other issue here is that in order for twists to work,
they must be honest. Anybody can add unexpected surprises if they
cheat. I learned in college about the difference between a twist ending
and a surprise ending. Twist endings require that you can trace the
plot backwards and see exactly where things branched off. You must
be able to watch the film and realize exactly where you missed the
hints. A surprise ending is one where the director hits you with the
ending and shouts "Surprise!" while you sit there and have
no idea why or how things ended like this. The first can be really
cool if done correctly. The latter is crap. The funny thing about
this film is that the end isn't even a surprise, as we can see it
coming from a million miles away. It's kind of like when a semi-famous
guest star is on Law & Order. They didn't hire that person
to have a tiny part in the beginning of the episode where he/she denies
involvement in a crime. You can bet this person had something to do
with it, and there's a good chance he'll not only be around for the
"order" part of the show, but will be serving some time
after Jack gets done with him. All you have to do is look at the DVD
cover of this flick to know who's going to come out on top. You don't
hire Gene Hackman for your movie to make him a sucker. Speaking of
Law & Order, I've certainly seen episodes of that show
that put this film to shame. I must say that I'm very disappointed
with this film, after thinking that some action might put some spice
into Mamet's normally intricate, talky plots. Instead, we got this
watered-down, flaccid piece of recycled garbage. [DVD]
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