HEIST
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is one of David Mamet's best. It is a
razor-sharp crime film. Gene Hackman stars as a very smart
robber pulled into one final heist for a crime lord played
by Danny DeVito. Clever robbery plans and double crosses
stud the plot. And the Mamet dialog is great even if the
Mamet stagy acting is not always so hot. Rating: 8 (0 to 10),
high +2 (-4 to +4)
One never quite knows what one is going to get with a Mamet film. His AMERICAN BUFFALO is a set-bound piece that has very little plot. Sometimes he will tell a story that really moves. HEIST is Mamet doing his most entertaining work. Unlike his THE SPANISH PRISONER, there are no lapses in credibility. HEIST is probably the best Mamet thriller since HOUSE OF GAMES. It is the kind of plot with which you are never sure who will double-cross whom, and frequently it is Mamet double-crossing the viewer. Watching the film's team getting around security the viewer is frequently asking himself either "what the heck are they doing?" or "why didn't anybody think of that before?"
Appropriately enough HEIST opens with a very clever jewelry store job. It is so clever that one wonders if Mamet really thinks up all these ideas himself or if he has help from professional magician and con expert Ricky Jay, now a regular actor in Mamet films. This is a robbery that works like a well-oiled machine. There is just one problem and it is enough to get Joe Moore (played by Gene Hackman) filmed on a security camera. Now Joe has to get out of the business. It was coming time anyway. Joe's team including Bobby Blane (Delroy Lindo), Fran Moor (Rebecca Pidgeon), and Pinky Pincus (Ricky Jay) is going to split up and go separate ways. But crime boss Bergman (Danny DeVito) is pulling the strings and he says that Joe and his people have to manage one more robbery. And he has to take along a young kid, the short- fused Jimmy Silk (Sam Rockwell). Immediately it is obvious that there is more going on than meets the eye.
Much of what distinguishes HEIST is Mamet's dialog. Remarkably it serves a double purpose. The robbery team sounds at once very professional and at the same time it has Mamet's special feel for dialog. Hackman has lines like "Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money." Mamet's timing is perfect in the direction but terrible in the production. The plot is coincidentally a lot like the plot of the recent THE SCORE, which is, in fact, a very similar story. Both are good films, perhaps for some of the same reasons. But at least on a high level they are much the same story. The other problem with the timing of HEIST is that it involves airport security and clever ways to get around them. I saw the film at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2001. That made the subject matter just a little too timely. My understanding is that the release will be delayed.
My biggest problem with the film is that Rebecca Pidgeon's acting at times seems very poor. It is some kind of Mamet trademark I do not understand to have women talk without inflection, as if they are just reading the words for the first time. It is an irritation and distracts us from what is otherwise a very good thriller. It is one I rate an 8 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
markrleeper@yahoo.com
Copyright 2001 Mark R. Leeper
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