Hot on the heels of Steven Soderbergh's 2001 Ocean's Eleven remake comes Neil Jordan's The Good Thief; a colourful, extravagant film about some pretty desperate people inhabiting a grimy world of strippers, drug addicts and gangsters unsure of whether to keep on the straight and narrow and depict it as all fun and frolics, or as a depiction of a disgraceful; disgusting underbelly to a photogenic locale that everybody needs to wake up to. Personally, I like my neo-noir-cum-heist movies in a greyed out, grotty, grimy locale; think something along the lines of 2010's The Town, unravelling in Boston; thin 1999's Payback, unfolding in a weird mesh of Chicago and New York further still transported back to the 1960s; think post-war London acting as a great backdrop to the original The Ladykillers. The second you hop over to a warm, colourful location such as Monaco, it just becomes a holiday – and I find it difficult not to just instantaneously wash my hands of the whole thing .
The film's cast, while not as big nor seductive enough to lure those in whom watch their movies for who's in them rather than who's making them, is still pretty hefty and again follows these people doing their utmost to thieve something big. The film is ultimately a let down, a rather fruity failure which fizzes now and again but is too grounded in genre convention and quick to submit to off-the-wall content typical of the more recent films of director Neil Jordan to be any good. Nick Nolte plays Bob Montagnet, and being Nick Nolte, he plays him with that trademark growl that often has him come across as what Chris Rea might sound like doing a Tom Waits impersonation. He's an ambling, shambling individual; a man who loves his gambling, even bases himself within the European capital of gambling, Monte-Carlo, and going so far so as to confess his love for the pastime that he has a roulette wheel in his apartment.
Along with this particular hobby, Bob has a tendency to dwell within the realms of strip clubs and is additionally a drug addict; in his own words, he "cannot remember back to the 1980s" - such is the nature of his life and what it has been for so long. Despite these coked up; down-and-out; floozy knowing foundations, he is able to speak Arabic - one such instance seeing him utilise these attributes when there is a disagreement during yet another night in the blue-hued clubs of pole dancers and drugs. What unfolds is an instance that sees Bob act cool and collectively; a stopping of two people from coming to blows, in what is a handling of a situation in a methodical and scrupulous manner. Later, Bob will need to apply these traits to a mission carrying a greater amount of risk and hostility; this follows a day at the races, in which he goes on to bet every last morsel he has on a huge risk/reward punt which, as surprised as we all are when we watch it, doesn't go according to plan. Bottomed out, he turns to what skills he had in his former life as a criminal; specifically, stealing and instigating a heist on a casino housing many thousands of French currency.
It is established this casino has been hit in the past, although unsuccessfully on the occasions it has been; the picture ominous as we entrust this stammering, stuttering drug addict seemingly too spaced out to recall what happened fifteen years ago, although is able to cite and discuss the work of Piccasso. Hope lies solely with the fact the place has had recent refurbishment, and that this fact ought to aid them in some way. What follows is that of the film's uninteresting meat on a pretty spindly bone, a series of meetings and interactions with other people able to assist in the heist which forms into the bulk of what usually transpires during the opening act of a bog-standard heist film. Here, varying scenes of planning and such are stretched out to an overly long, and often uninteresting, degree which is dressed up with some cool lighting and some Heat-esque musical tones not only calling to mind Michael Mann's film but making you wish you were watching the damned thing instead.
To carry out the heist, Bob must kick his drug-habit, but this is only the first of his problems as Saïd Taghmaoui's Arab Paulo looks to grass him in if it means saving his own skin while plain-suited police officer Roger (Karyo) is constantly watching his old rival with the intent to arrest him if needs be. One scene they share, in a church, exemplifies the nature of their relationship; that is to say, their meeting in a peaceful and very calm locale reiterates their harmonious coexisting, or understanding that they have, but is punctuated by Bob's persistent moving around highlighting the stationary Roger's inability to get a 'lock' on him. His crew will come to consist mostly of gross representations, in that an Eastern European woman will be depicted as flimsy and loose; an Arab will no-quicker betray his best friend than he did thank him for previously getting him out of trouble, while a character with an ambiguous sexual orientation is under developed and feels wedged in so as to garner smirks from the audience. The Good Thief strikes us as style over substance, such is the nature of Jordan's work when he doesn't quite fire as loudly and as proudly as he did with both Mona Lisa and The Crying Game. They were films about male leads walking a tightrope as a world of sleaze, or criminality, spun rabidly around them threatened to undo their uneasy relationships with the women in their lives. Here, we do not like the lead as much as Hoskins' ignorant, although well-meaning, driver; nor as much as Stephen Rea's terrorist cell operating rouge whom decides to develop a conscience.
The film's cast, while not as big nor seductive enough to lure those in whom watch their movies for who's in them rather than who's making them, is still pretty hefty and again follows these people doing their utmost to thieve something big. The film is ultimately a let down, a rather fruity failure which fizzes now and again but is too grounded in genre convention and quick to submit to off-the-wall content typical of the more recent films of director Neil Jordan to be any good. Nick Nolte plays Bob Montagnet, and being Nick Nolte, he plays him with that trademark growl that often has him come across as what Chris Rea might sound like doing a Tom Waits impersonation. He's an ambling, shambling individual; a man who loves his gambling, even bases himself within the European capital of gambling, Monte-Carlo, and going so far so as to confess his love for the pastime that he has a roulette wheel in his apartment.
Along with this particular hobby, Bob has a tendency to dwell within the realms of strip clubs and is additionally a drug addict; in his own words, he "cannot remember back to the 1980s" - such is the nature of his life and what it has been for so long. Despite these coked up; down-and-out; floozy knowing foundations, he is able to speak Arabic - one such instance seeing him utilise these attributes when there is a disagreement during yet another night in the blue-hued clubs of pole dancers and drugs. What unfolds is an instance that sees Bob act cool and collectively; a stopping of two people from coming to blows, in what is a handling of a situation in a methodical and scrupulous manner. Later, Bob will need to apply these traits to a mission carrying a greater amount of risk and hostility; this follows a day at the races, in which he goes on to bet every last morsel he has on a huge risk/reward punt which, as surprised as we all are when we watch it, doesn't go according to plan. Bottomed out, he turns to what skills he had in his former life as a criminal; specifically, stealing and instigating a heist on a casino housing many thousands of French currency.
It is established this casino has been hit in the past, although unsuccessfully on the occasions it has been; the picture ominous as we entrust this stammering, stuttering drug addict seemingly too spaced out to recall what happened fifteen years ago, although is able to cite and discuss the work of Piccasso. Hope lies solely with the fact the place has had recent refurbishment, and that this fact ought to aid them in some way. What follows is that of the film's uninteresting meat on a pretty spindly bone, a series of meetings and interactions with other people able to assist in the heist which forms into the bulk of what usually transpires during the opening act of a bog-standard heist film. Here, varying scenes of planning and such are stretched out to an overly long, and often uninteresting, degree which is dressed up with some cool lighting and some Heat-esque musical tones not only calling to mind Michael Mann's film but making you wish you were watching the damned thing instead.
To carry out the heist, Bob must kick his drug-habit, but this is only the first of his problems as Saïd Taghmaoui's Arab Paulo looks to grass him in if it means saving his own skin while plain-suited police officer Roger (Karyo) is constantly watching his old rival with the intent to arrest him if needs be. One scene they share, in a church, exemplifies the nature of their relationship; that is to say, their meeting in a peaceful and very calm locale reiterates their harmonious coexisting, or understanding that they have, but is punctuated by Bob's persistent moving around highlighting the stationary Roger's inability to get a 'lock' on him. His crew will come to consist mostly of gross representations, in that an Eastern European woman will be depicted as flimsy and loose; an Arab will no-quicker betray his best friend than he did thank him for previously getting him out of trouble, while a character with an ambiguous sexual orientation is under developed and feels wedged in so as to garner smirks from the audience. The Good Thief strikes us as style over substance, such is the nature of Jordan's work when he doesn't quite fire as loudly and as proudly as he did with both Mona Lisa and The Crying Game. They were films about male leads walking a tightrope as a world of sleaze, or criminality, spun rabidly around them threatened to undo their uneasy relationships with the women in their lives. Here, we do not like the lead as much as Hoskins' ignorant, although well-meaning, driver; nor as much as Stephen Rea's terrorist cell operating rouge whom decides to develop a conscience.