Too much of everything

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

One thing I can't stand are cynical critics who no longer take joy in the simple delights of cinema. Sadly, most critics were unfairly harsh with David Mamet's HEIST, another addition to the recent wave of "heist" movies currently doing the rounds at the local cinemas and video shops (others include OCEAN'S 11, DECEPTION, and THE SCORE). Despite the hackneyed storyline, the film offers much reward to viewers prepared to sit through it. For a start there's the witty, almost comedic script which focuses on wordplay and fleshes out characters to a point where realism is at an all time high. Then there's the plot, which twists and turns so many times with double, even triple crosses, that you can never quite guess what will happen next. One casualty as a result of these twists is that some of the situations seem a little unbelievable and there are one or two obvious holes in the plot, but these are easy to dismiss as inconsequential when there's so much else to enjoy. Watching a film with this much attention to detail and intelligence in the scripting and direction is a delight and a rare treat in modern cinema.The casting is also excellent with uniformly good performances. Of course, the older, veteran performers are light-years ahead of their younger counterparts. Leading the way is Gene Hackman who seems thirty years younger in the part, more evidence that this underrated actor is a force to be reckoned with. I believe Hackman is past seventy these days but still going strong; his acting here is as good as ever and his sympathetic criminal makes the film worth watching. His foil is Danny DeVito, a long way from his earlier 'comedy' roles in the likes of TWINS, here playing a ruthless gangster with all of the loathsomeness he can fathom. Finally Delroy Lindo is on hand as a loyal aide, giving another of his brooding portrayals with some occasionally startling outbursts of violence. Ricky Jay has a small but sympathetic role whilst newcomer Sam Rockwell is suitably slimy as a creep.The various set-pieces are superbly staged and I love how the actual heists are planned down to the smallest detail (take for example the opening gamble, which is cinema at its best in my opinion). The plane robbery is also highly suspenseful and Mamet keeps tension running high throughout the film. The finale is a rewarding shoot-out which is superbly choreographed and graceful, and provides some fitting – not to mention hilarious – payoffs for some of the villainous characters. Just about everything is great about this movie. Although there are no really big surprises and some of the twists are obvious (the concluding twist is just a joke, really) for the most part this is gripping stuff. Watch it and see.

David Mamet loves confidence tricksters. He understands the art of the con and he likes writing about the subject. When Mamet writes or directs a film about con men you know its a multi layered experience.Heist though is a misfire. It stars Gene Hackman and Rebecca Pidgeon as husband and wife as well as Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo and Sam Rockwell.Gene Hackman and his gang are forced by DeVito to steal a shipment of Swiss gold and has his nephew (Sam Rockwell) to tag along. He has an eye for Pidgeon and no one wants to share the proceeds of the heist.Its hard boiled with hard cursing and some Mamet regulars such as Ricky Jay. However Hackman is too old to be Pidgeon's husband and Pidgeon as an actress is weak here. The plot is too complicated as its based on a double cross on a double cross as well as a shootout where the bad guys have to be poor shots for any overall plan to work.The acting from Hackman, DeVito, Lindo and Rockwell make the film watchable but its a missed opportunity from Mamet.

Heist is written and directed by David Mamet. It stars Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Sam Rockwell, Rebbecca Pidgeon and Ricky Jay. Music is by Theodore Shapiro and cinematography by Robert Elswit. Joe Moore (Hackman) and his small band of thieves are "coerced" into taking on one last big job by their shifty fence Mickey Bergman (DeVito). But when Bergman's nephew Jimmy Silk (Rockwell) is sent along on the heist with them, it could prove to be a recipe for disaster?The "one last job" theme is a familiar plot device in many a crime and noir picture, but as Mamet proves here, it can still remain fresh if given its own sheen. Divisive amongst Mamet's fans and seen as a lesser light in the director's neo-noir output, Heist improves greatly upon a second viewing. In fact it holds up as a clinically executed piece of noirish cinema, it's smart, crafty and laced with essence of cool.You're a piece of work!I came all the way from China in a matchbox.Structured around twists and tricks, where nothing is ever as it seems - including the wonderfully ambiguous finale - Heist positively thrives on the snap, crackle and pop of Mamet's dialogue, dialogue that comes trickling off the tongues of characters whose loyalties/dis-loyalties are never 100% certain. Quite often what is being said is in clipped format, where the meaning is different to what is actually being said, while visual exchanges, also, sometimes mean more than it appears at first glance. Make no bones about it, this is no ordinary caper movie, it's labyrinthine in plotting and the director toys with the conventions of the formula.My MOFO is so cool when sheep go to bed they count him!Visually Mamet and DOP Elswit keep the colours smooth, but they do throw in some interesting angles and use smoky lenses to accentuate the possibility of cloudy means and motives. Acting performances are mostly excellent. Hackman underplays it perfectly as a world weary crim who may or may not be one step ahead of the game? Lindo is muscular and cool, Jay a stoic side-kick, DeVito slimy and Pidgeon (Mamet's wife) provides layers as the fulcrum femme. Only real disappointment comes with Rockwell as the poisonous adder in the thieves nest. A few years away from becoming the great actor he is now, Rockwell here lacks a dangerous dynamism, a raw sexuality to really make the integral character work to its potential.Elsewhere there's flaws, such as the key heist involving an aeroplane that stretches credibility to breaking point; a shame since the opening robbery that introduces us to the characters is brilliantly constructed, and the big "shoot-out" scene lacks the energy to really raise the pulse; but even within that scene is a great moment as DeVito's Mickey Bergman, in amongst the flying bullets, shouts out the question: "why can't we just talk?", why indeed? You see, in Mamet's badly under valued neo-noir, talk is everything. Beautifully so. 8/10

The film is literally about a group of people who know exactly how to communicate and collaborate without even having to confer by speaking, confronted with a newcomer who doesn't speak that language at all, and probably couldn't to save his life, but they're nevertheless forced to deal with him. Mamet's twists aren't just "twists." They work at this fundamental level, for instance as they all work right under our noses to rid themselves early in the game of this unexpected liability, how every character knows what the other really means and implicitly goes along with it lock, stock and barrel. This greenhorn, in all seriousness, expresses his guileless lack of understanding of what would ordinarily be expected to be meant, let alone the real situation as regards to him. Later on, when chance comes back to bite them, leader of the pack takes a moment to think, then gives them tasks. His number two guy asks where he's going with this, to which he just replies, "Just listen." They often nod to each other from a distance and no one else sees. We've seen this done a lot, but not in this way too often: What is the idea that one is communicating that the other immediately acts upon? Hackman plays Joe "Cute as a Chinese Baby" Moore, a thief whose real passion is building boats. His crew comprises Bobby ("You know why the chicken crossed the road? 'Cause the road crossed the chicken.") and Pincus ("He's so cool, when he goes to bed, sheep count him."), and Joe's wife Fran, who "could talk her way out of a sunburn." They pull a big job, with one snag: Joe's face on security camera. Time to tow anchor and aim for ports, but not as per Mickey Bergman, who forces Joe into One Last Job, and insists he include his incompetent nephew Jimmy Silk, the sort of madcap who packs a gun in an unsafe neighborhood which wouldn't be that if he left.The plot progresses through tangled altitudes of deception. Mamet adores magic, namely trickery, and this plot, like The Spanish Prisoner and House of Games, is a spectrum that refracts various realities conditional on how you're slanted at a given time. It also includes ample loads of criminal art, as in the minutiae of the opening diamond heist, and the way they appropriate gold ingots from a cargo plane later on.Some critics disliked the particulars I loved most. We learn from professional opinion-pushers that some climactic gunplay could've profited from more stylized treatment, which is amazingly unwise. Are they suggesting they would've favored one of those according-to-Hoyle automated gunfights we're tired of after innumerable overhauls? What I love about this climactic gunfight is the way some of the characters are clumsy and uncomfortable. This is perhaps their first gunfight. DeVito skips into the line of fire frantically, "Let's just talk!" Earlier, you suddenly find a violent confrontation breaking out between Delroy Lindo and a few of DeVito's heavies, and then going right back to trying to talk things out, right out of the building. The care with which Hackman says, "He ain't gonna shoot me? Then he hadn't oughta point a gun at me. It's insincere." And the typical exactness of this exchange: "Hey, I'll be as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton." "I don't want you as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton. I want you as quiet as an ant not even thinking about pissing on cotton." I'm also confused by why critics harass Rebecca Pidgeon. Yes, she has a distinguishing delivery which is well-matched with Mametized dialogue: terse, abrupt, informal. Mamet enjoys creating anachronisms for her like when Joe says, "Nobody lives forever," and with pure deadpan she replies, "Frank Sinatra gave it a shot." She's not meant as a graceful classic noir succubus, though her character doesn't mind seizing that opportunity, but as a gutsy Anybodys sort who can't entirely be trusted. Mamet bothers to provide us with technique and inventiveness, and is criticized by professionals because his work doesn't come from an automated press.Hackman is naturally a connoisseur at gristly, graying veterans and, oddly, has been throughout his career. He and Lindo make a home in their roles so effortlessly facing twists and double-crosses with down-to-earth authenticity. A makeshift rapport that assures us they've collaborated for quite a long time and are like-minded on all that counts, their knowing abbreviation is like an old stand-up's slang, guiding our interest away from the ruse. And DeVito is one of the most unfailingly amusing actors in American cinema, with an oomph that makes his dialogue throb. "I've just financialized the numbers," he rationalizes. He's not a bad guy here, simply an unethical capitalist glutton with risky affiliations.And one may wonder why Pidgeon's Fran would do what she does after the truck collision, but it's because we can't be certain whether her final surprise is really her final surprise. And the film closes with one of the great movie smiles, maybe a little more at us than what's transpired. And we smile back, cheek to cheek, because it's still self-contained: This character knows the final surprise is not the final surprise. Heist is the brand of caper film that came before special effects supplanted sharpness, structure and dialogue. This movie is comprised of natural ingredients, not manufactured goods. With both heists, at the beginning and in the middle, major stakes are raised, because in spite of its practically record-setting amount of plot twists, it's about its characters.