BEFORE: I was all set to watch "Carlito's Way", connecting back through Luis Guzman, but then I remembered it's the middle of the week, and I have to show up (relatively) on time for work. Anyway, that's a drug kingpin film, and doesn't fit in so well if I'm working on a heist/caper chain. So this one moves up in the line-up, and I go from a diamond-store heist to armored car robberies. Works for me. I could easily link from P.S. Hoffman through Matt Damon, but it's much more elegant to point out that Amy Ryan from "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" was also in "Gone Baby Gone" with Titus Welliver, who appears here.
THE PLOT: As he plans his next job, a longtime thief tries to balance his feelings for a bank manager connected to one of his earlier heists, while an FBI agent looks to bring him and his crew down.
AFTER: This is a tight, gripping little heist film, and another film from just last year that I've been looking forward to seeing. It just started running on premium cable last week (I can afford PPV once in a while, but not on a regular basis) so it's a bit of great timing that I can work it in here.
The same old buggaboo crops up - how am I supposed to feel sympathetic for a career criminal? Do I respect the fact that the heist is extremely well-organized, and that the gang members take pride in their work? Elaborate disguises, well-prepared "switch" getaway vehicles, pre-paid off alibis? Way to go, guys! Wait, am I rooting for the right people? Should I be hoping that the FBI and cops succeed instead?
This film gets around this by showing us that the bank robbers are real people, with real feelings, full-time jobs (OK, some are no-show jobs, but still...) and real relationships, plus hopes and dreams (dreams to get out of "the life", good luck with that...) There's also an implication that they're the by-products of society, by pointing out that the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown somehow produces more bank robbers per capita than anywhere else. So there must be something in the water, or else society's to blame.
Which sounds like an odd enough fact to be true (what am I supposed to do, look it up?) but if it is, and Charlestown is filled with bank robbers, wouldn't that be the FIRST place that the Boston police go after a bank robbery, to start asking around? And if so, wouldn't it behoove some of these career criminals to move to another part of town? There are banks all over the place, right?
Another neat trick to make the main character sympathetic (besides showing that he tries to pull off the heists without shooting anyone - again, good luck with that) is to have him blackmailed into pulling off that one last job, the big score. If he WANTED to do another job, he'd appear greedy, and we'd lose our sympathy for him. But if he's FORCED to do another job, by a much more "evil" man, then we're still invested in him.
It's also telling that the main character, Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck, last seen in "Chasing Amy") correctly surmises that the heat is on, and that pulling another heist so soon would be a really, really bad idea. You never see that much in movies - criminals making a score and then saying, "I've made a good amount of cash, I think I'll quit robbing banks for a while..." Why is that? Do we just assume that it's a form of addiction? Or for the right, talented criminal, the payoff is so good that there's never a reason to stop?
Like Doug's character, many of us watch "CSI" and films about heists, so we all know that the bills might be marked, they can't spend any of that money openly anyway, not for years, and the FBI will keep working until they get a lead. So what's the appeal, is it the thrill of the score?
This film is to bank heists what "The Departed" was for undercover cops - using all the clichés but in a (semi-)new fashion, to become the ultimate example of that genre.
And of course, the uncredited star of the film is the city of Boston itself, from the Charlestown Bridge to Yawkey Way to those narrow still-cobblestoned streets. And they got the accents damn near spot on!
I suggest keeping an eye out for this talented young director, this Ben Affleck kid - I have a feeling he's going places.
Also starring Jeremy Renner (last seen in "The Hurt Locker"), Jon Hamm (last seen in "The Day the Earth Stood Still"), Rebecca Hall (last seen in "Everything Must Go"), Blake Lively (last seen in "New York, I Love You"), Pete Postlethwaite (last seen in "Inception") and Chris Cooper (also last seen in "New York, I Love You").
RATING: 8 out of 10 duffel bags
I liked all the heist stuff in this movie, but the whole romance storyline just killed it for me. There was nothing about the Ben Affleck character that made me believe for a second that the woman would fall for him. His character had all the appeal of a mildewy towel. I just saw him in another movie, The Company Men, and I had the same reaction to his character. I think it's the actor more than the characters -- for me it is, anyway. I just don't think Affleck has the skill to make his characters more sympathetic.
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