Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Bruce Willis and his fake hair scare me in the trailers for this film. I like Willis, Blanchett, and Thorton, but those wigs... dear god, the horror.
Let's see what one of our faithful chatters has to say.
Hi AICN,
OttoMaddox here again. Tonight, I attended the sneak preview of BANDITS, and I thought I'd send you a review of what I thought...which wasn't anything good.
BANDITS
You know, I've long been looking forward to BANDITS for a long time. When I first saw its trailer back in July before LEGALLY BLONDE, it certainly looked like a lot of fun. It didn't look like anything that would win awards, but just a fun movie that meant to be pure pleasure, with cool bank robberies and some amusing scenes with strong actors like Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. And with director Barry Levinson at the helm, what really could go wrong? Unfortunately, just about everything does in this movie.
Understand, I don't particularly hate BANDITS, nor do I think this is the worst movie of the year. But it's not at all a good movie, but instead just a terrible, unholy mess. It's often amusing, entertaining, but also very annoying. There are an incredible amount of unnecessary scenes of people screaming at each other and botched attempts at quirkiness. There's also a predictable ending that's telegraphed almost halfway through.
The only moment that seems to work in terms of quirkiness is a particularly great scene where Willis and Thornton take a family hostage, and have dinner with them. The children are calm and indifferent to the danger they're in, while the parents, particularly the mother (Stacey Travis of GHOST WORLD) seems horrified. Travis cries and breaks down, while Thornton, oblivious, asks her about the spices she used in the spaghetti. Then, her daughter does impressive belches for their captors. That scene is very funny and works. The rest of the movie doesn't.
The film follows the story of bank robbers Joe and Terry (Willis and Thornton) who at the start of the film, are in the midst of a bank robbery and an argument about the woman they took hostage, Kate (Blanchett), who has apparently gone to the police and ratted them out. The film then cuts to a AMERICA'S MOST WANTED-type show (hosted by Bobby Slayton, who I personally can't stand) where we look back on what happened before. The film cuts to a point before the robbery (without even indicating how long ago it was), where the two are in prison and are friends. We quickly get a badly cobbled portrait of the two: Joe's the cool headed muscle of the two, while Terry's the hyper-neurotic brains of the operation who also happens to be a major hypocondriac.
In about thirty seconds after seeing a cement truck arrive at the prison, Joe comes up with a plan. The two then bust out, moving on from that point to steal a woman's car (they don't even force her out of it; they just tell her they need it, and she hands it over, inexplicably). After that, the two instantly go on to rob a bank with a yellow highlighter. After escaping the police and spending the night at a house with two horny teenagers (don't ask), the two meet up with Joe's relative (the annoying Troy Garity), a goofy stuntman wannabe. The three begin pulling off heists and become known as "the Sleepover Bandits", since they go to the bank president's house the night before and kidnap them.
Soon, in a series of circumstances after a robbery, Terry ends up being struck by a car driven by Kate, who we learn is an eccentric, neglected housewife bored with her life. Kate takes Terry to meet Joe, and immediately sparks fly between Joe and Kate, mostly due to their mutual affection of Bonnie Tyler songs. Terry is at first annoyed by Kate, until he is forced to spend time with her, and an attraction grows between them as well. Soon, the movie becomes about the relationship between Joe, Terry, and Kate, the latter of which can't decide between the two, since she believes that they "make up the perfect man."
And looking back at the description I've given, I have to say, BANDITS still doesn't sound like a completely awful movie. But it is. Most of the attempts by Levinson and writer Harley Peyton at quirky humor fall flat on their face and go become embarassing. Particularly a moment between Thornton and Blanchett in a bar, where he while dancing with Blanchett, becomes so paralyzed by his hypocondria that he becomes a quivering mess on the floor. Moments like that in the film, you just want to look away from the movie and gouge out your eyes.
And then there are other moments where the film almost gets by on the charm of its actors. Willis is pretty okay as the cool yet undeveloped Joe, while Thornton is often very funny as Terry, at least when the script doesn't ask him to embarrass himself. The movie's real star is Blanchett, who is probably the only reason you'd ever want to actually see the film. Even though she's forced to read some pretty embarassing dialogue, she manages to rise above it all, thanks to her charm and the strength of her performance.
The thing that makes BANDITS a real crime (pun definitely intended) is how much of an opportunity was lost here. With these actors all in this movie with the premise it had, we could have had a nice, slick action/comedy like OUT OF SIGHT. Instead, we get something more like this year's earlier BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, where the filmmakers own need to try to be quirky and clever kills the movie and all chances for the fun that we, the audience, could have had.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to seek sanctuary in my new PINK FLAMINGOS/FEMALE TROUBLE dvd...
OttoMaddox
Yeah, 'cause as my grandmother always said, there's no better way to get over trauma than to watch a giant transvestite eat dog crap. Give 'em hell, Otto.
"Moriarty" out.
