Heist


Greed for gold is the primary motivator in the plot for Heist, a thriller with twists that are engaging, but ultimately self-defeating.

The film focuses on a bunch of gold thieves: Joe Moore (Gene Hackman), his wife Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon), Bobby Blane (Delroy Lindo), and Pinky Pincus (Ricky Jay). Their fence is Mickey Bergman (Danny DeVito), who is aided by the obnoxious Jimmy Silk (Sam Rockwell). While pulling a job, Joe is recorded by the camera and Mickey uses this to manipulate Joe to get him to pull of "the big job". Joe, being a person with his own mind, does the job and keeps the gold, which infuriates Mickey. The two groups try to go one up on another, and the alliances between the group members become unstable.

The actors all deliver solid performances, a necessity for a movie full of twists to work. Particular highlights include Hackman as the crafty thief, and Danny DeVito as a sleazy and comical fence. The ending of Heist is not very satisfying because the final twists seem perfunctory, as if done just to show they could be done. A more thought-out ending sequence would've worked better.

While Heist doesn't end cleanly, that's not a necessary requirement for me to like the movie. The film is highly entertaining and definitely worth watching on the big screen.


Movie ramblings || Ram Samudrala || me@ram.org