Harry here with my... super super super fan... Mussssst Looooock Doooooooor.... writing in from Boston with his look at Mamet's THE HEIST which played there during the amazing BOSTON FILM FEST! Just so ya know all the film action ain't in Toronto! Here ya go...
Harry, I know you already posted a review of Heist from the Boston Film Festival (scooped! Curses!), but won't you take a peek at this and post mine, too? If it helps, I am a super super super fan. So super that if I gave you details you might become uncomfortable. No just kiddin'. But I am a big fan.
You can call me "Buzz Cardigan."
Heist
MILD SPOILERS
I went into "Heist" knowing David Mamet wrote it, but not until the end did I realize he was also the director. All in all, it was great fun. Although I wasn't happy with some of the performances early on in the movie, or the way the actors were filmed, the movie picks up speed quickly and once the ball gets rolling it GOES, baby! I would imagine that at his level of accomplishment nobody dares to second-guess Mamet's dialogue, and there were some definite potholes in the banter, flat moments where the audience shifted uncomfortably at a bizarre analogy or unnecessarily overwritten colloquialism. Still, a lot of the stylized give and take that turned me off his earlier stuff is absent here. The best aspect of the movie, besides a brief shot of Rebecca Pidgeon in short cut-offs, is without a doubt the heists themselves. I'm trying to be careful of spoilers, 'cuz this movie twists and turns like a goddamn eel in a freshwater toilet bowl.
Did you just read that and go, "What?" That's what I was talking about earlier; overwritten witticisms. Anyhow, the plot is ingenious. Not the greater plot arc, which involves an aging thief/con artist going back for One Last Big Score before he retires from the game (why are you rolling your eyes?), but the details of the heists themselves and the increasingly frantic workarounds the characters devise when the already complex plans go inevitably and nail-bitingly awry. The cast is mostly superb. Rebecca Pidgeon does her job, but Mamet doesn't give her any personality. The previous reviewer calls her a "femme fatale," which in this case is a generous euphemism for "woefully undeveloped motivations." It's a failing that in a film many of whose tensions hinge on personality and trust we never get the slightest insight into her. Feminists still smarting from the outrages of "Oleanna" will not find much evidence that Mamet's attitudes or understanding of women has matured. Talkbackers, commence ripping me a new one.
I've used Mamet's name a lot in this review, and this feels very much like his movie. That's a positive, because the white-knuckled cords-standing-out-on-neck Henry Rollins stuff that used to go into bursts of angry speech now goes into deliciously tense action sequences. With a couple of forgiveable and enjoyable exceptions, Mamet plays no tricks with the camera. The first heist puts us on edge with mildly disorienting close-ups, but the later action is shot coolly... breathing room between the cuts, enough distance that you can keep track of where everybody is relative to each other... my god, action sequences in which you can actually follow the action without the camera behaving like a strobe-mad labrador puppy! Usually "workmanlike" means uninspired, but action this well-choreographed and acted needs no rococo. There is a long scene near the end, on a pier, whose pacing I particularly enjoyed; reminded me of hard-boiled seventies stuff, or an old Western.
I don't think the movie's ultimate conclusion will take too many by surprise. There is a twist, but by that point we've been whipsawed around so much that it's not too hard to call. When and if this flick shows up in your town, go check it out. Even if, like me, you don't want to see another heist flick, check it out. You won't be sorry.
MAJOR SPOILER (highlight to read):
GENE HACKMAN HAS A BEER AND CHEETS ON HIS WIFE!
Buzz Cardigan
And then we got this one...
Hey Harry,
This is my first scoop, read the site a lot. More detail than G-Man's.
I was at the Boston Film Festival's showing of Heist last nite, and tho I saw G-Man's review, thought I'd weigh in with some thoughts of my own.
Ya gotta love a good caper movie. And a good twist movie. Crosses, double-crosses, triple-crosses, etc. And Mamet knows what he's doing. Go back to House of Games, an intricate little psychological thriller set in the world of con men with an unsettling ending and some great tricks throughout. This movie forgoes the psychological complexity and strives to entertain, and it does.
Mamet has put together a pitch-perfect cast for this one, including one of his regulars (and PT Anderson's), magician/actor Ricky Jay, who does a really good job and has an early scene as a decoy that is totally priceless.
Gene Hackman delivers his usual steady work, and while he was very good, I found myself appreciating more the hilarious and hardened Delroy Lindo as his right-hand man, and the formerly cute-as-a-button but, in this movie, hot-as-coals Mrs. Mamet, Rebecca Pidgeon. I remember not really liking her too much in The Spanish Prisoner, but I liked her a lot in State and Main and absolutely LOVED her here. She is PERFECT. Gorgeous, sultry, tough and smart. Sam Rockwell is great, as always, can't WAIT to see Confessions. He needs a starring role.
The plot is too much to get into, but aside from a sequence at an airport that I found a bit unsettling in light of recent events, the movie really moves. My main problem with it is one that cannot be avoided, considering the nature of the film, and that is that since it's a twist-movie, you just kind of keep waiting for the next big switcheroo. But that's okay, the fun is in seeing it go down, and seeing the actors play it.
It was a bit old-fashioned, in the vein of something like The Asphalt Jungle, or The Killing, but with twists galore. There were some odd moments of violence that seemed a bit out of place, but the dialogue tempered it pretty well. "Don't you wanna hear my last words?" "I just did." Nice.
Oh, and I thought the music was a bit reminiscent of The Untouchables, an all-time favorite of mine with Mamet's spectacular dialogue.
There is some hysterically funny dialogue in this one, delivered mostly by Delroy Lindo and Ricky Jay, but Danny DeVito has a few geat lines as the high-profile bankroller for the gang's thievery jobs. My favorite DeVito line: "Everybody needs money. That's why it's called money!"
The crowd in Boston at the gorgeous new Loews in Boston Common was EATING UP the dialogue, loving every clever line Mamet fed them on screen. The man can write, even if there is an occassional line or two that seems a bit contrived.
After the movie was done, some questions were taken by Mr. Mamet, and I will give you guys the best one. This man loves profanity and obscenity, and here's a beautiful example. When an audience member asked him what it was like to take one of his plays and adapt it to the screen, Mamet answered, "It's like raping your children to teach them about sex."
The crowd lost it. "Cute as a Chinese Baby."
Thanks a lot.
And call me "Superman Screen Test"
